Dying Light
by Darkw01fie
Summary: When they speak of him they say "Harry Potter, outlaw and warrior, wasn't always the leader of the revolution, he is not a god and he was a child just like any other" but was he truly like any other? Some would argue he was different from the start, even back then.
1. The boy who existed

_The idea for this story came to me. It was "Harry starts a revolution" but then I thought, "How do I make Harry get to the point he starts a revolution" the answer came to me, his friends. This will include major character loss, Harry will not be becoming the next dark lord but neither will he be the next lord of the light._

_I guess you could also say the story is about the science of magic too._

_**As this story is still being written you may come across mistakes, I would greatly appreciate these mistakes being pointed out so that I may fix them and improve the overall quality of the story. **_

* * *

Harry Potter had realised he was different for as long as he could remember, unlike the other children he was required to cook every meal for his relatives, the Dursleys. He even got a close up view of what life should be like as the Dursleys doted over their 'only' son Dudley, he got whatever he asked for while Harry was stuck with rags and a cupboard under the stairs.

The first time he had gone to school Harry had seen it as a new start, here was the chance he had craved to find another like himself. Those hopes were swiftly torn to shreds, the other students had treated him like he was insane and seemed shocked at the idea he lived under the stairs.

After school had ended he got to watch enviously as parents lovingly greeted their children, to those parents nothing mattered to them but their children's happiness. His classmates would excitedly tell their parents about their day and the achievements they had gained, all while Harry walked home alone and unloved, knowing that when he returned he would need to complete a list of chores before even thinking about homework and rest.

For his part Vernon Dursley was proud to think that no matter how angry he got, he had never struck his wife or nephew, he had never even thought of hitting his son. Whenever someone came up on the news who had been abusive he would turn to his nephew and say "Good thing you aren't with them, frankly we must be saints to have put up with you for so long."

Petunia had just enough love left for her sister that she wouldn't intentionally harm him either, she ensured he got enough food to live, but lack of physical abuse was not the same as a healthy childhood. Instead of beating him they simply acted like he just didn't exist, whenever they needed something done they would just yell for the "Boy".

By his seventh birthday Harry had given up hoping that the Dursleys would never care about him or his achievements. Despite the immense pressure Harry carried with him every day he was one of the top students in his class, his teachers would often note his thirst for knowledge and his unyielding drive.

Harry had dedicated himself to learning so that a time would come when he could leave the Dursleys forever and forge his own path. The seed for this dedication was the discovery that as long as he stayed inside his cupboard and out of sight, ensuring his chores were all done on time and to the expected standard, then the Dursleys would leave him alone to his own devices.

At school he had found solace in the library, the librarian didn't ask him difficult questions or make fun of his clothes. She would even help him if he needed it and kept the other students from bothering him, which made the library the most peaceful area Harry had ever managed to find.

Harry had been disappointed to lose access to that peace over the summer, that was until he had come up with an idea, one day once Vernon had gone off to work and Dudley had gone out with his gang, he had gone up to Petunia and asked her a question.

"Could I get a library card, Aunt Petunia?"

"Why would you want a library card?" she asked distractedly, she was currently trying to peer out the window to see what the young couple at number 9 were doing.

"So I could read in my cupboard, I find it very relaxing and if I was allowed to read I wouldn't need to leave it so much. I could just go down to the library and pick out a few books every so often and then just read in quiet." Harry said innocently

"Hmm, I suppose it wouldn't hurt. You're to ensure your chores are completed before you can read… Very well I'll take you to the library tomorrow so you can get this card."

After getting that little library card Harry Potter's life had changed for the better, the Dursleys almost forgot about him entirely and Harry went through great effort to make sure they had no reason to remember he existed. He focused on teaching himself skills that looked interesting or he found important, such as how to sew and fix the hand-me-down clothes the Dursleys had given him, he used his new found knowledge to make his clothes fit him better.

Books became a vital lifeline for him, they were his escape from reality and saviour from the Dursleys contempt. With them he discovered great and expansive universes, learned more about the world he lived in and the skills needed to survive in this new world. They taught him about science and maths, they taught him how to talk like an adult and how to keep going no matter what stood in his way.

If Petunia had not forgotten one major fact she would never have let Harry have that little card, it was a simple yet undeniable fact that would result in the destruction of all she held dear. Children's books were often about magic and nobody had bothered to tell Harry that there was a difference between fictional and non-fictional books.

Some time after his seventh birthday he was reading one of his favourite books, it was about a boy who grew up on a farm with his only living relative, a strict aunt and the boy's wise but aged mentor, Mister Wolf.

The boy, Garion was capable of performing magic, something which Harry was desperate to learn. The first act of magic was the boy accidently incinerating an enemy and while Harry had no interest in incinerating anyone he couldn't deny the idea of being able to summon fire at will was tantalising.

'Okay, the book said the first step in doing magic is to focus my will into what I want to do… I want a small flame to sit in my palm, I don't want it to be too hot otherwise it would hurt me… then I need a word that fits, I suppose just saying flame would be good enough' Harry thought

Focusing intently on his palm Harry willed the fire to form, he felt something stir within him and he let it build. When he felt like he was about to burst he simply said "Flame" and slowly, carefully a small flame flared into existence on his palm, it even moved exactly as he had imagined.

He spent the rest of his break getting the flame to respond to his will, by the time the bell had rung he could change its size and even its intensity. But the more he experimented the more tired he felt, when he finally went back to lesson he felt like he hadn't eaten in days.

The next several weeks were spent experimenting with this new found power, the more he practiced the easier he found it. It was with great joy he discovered he wasn't just limited to fire, he could make small stones hover around him and once even made a flower burst into flame without being anywhere near it.

He quickly forgot his books and focused on teaching himself as much magic as he could, every time he used his magic he felt satisfied and complete, it felt right. It fulfilled a desire he never knew he had, it felt like drinking when dehydrated or eating when starved. It didn't take long for Harry to wonder how he ever lived without magic before.

Despite his new found joy he was forced back to his books for any reference they had to magic, he quickly fell into a routine. He would spend every waking moment reading from his books, jotting down any interesting powers or abilities into a notebook he had stolen from school.

Then during his numerous moments alone he would try to replicate them. If he hadn't been neglected and ignored his whole life he might have gone and proudly shown the Dursleys his magical abilities, who would have taken away his books in an instant and attempted to stamp out his freakishness.

But having learned the Dursleys would never care about him, Harry never even thought to tell them of his magical study, afterall they didn't show any interest in his school work or his books so why would they want to see his magic work.

By regularly exercising and controlling his magic in private the accidental, uncontrolled magic that might have angered the Dursley's never appeared. When a teacher upset him he felt his magic rise to get revenge but he held it down. The wise mentors in his books always told their students to not misuse their magic, he didn't want to know what the Dursley's might do if they knew he had misused his magic at school.

Between Dudley threatening anyone that spoke to Harry and the boy preferring the solitude of the library, nobody at the school tried being friendly to Harry so he never asked about their own magical studies, if he had he would have known he was unique in his school. He was happier reading than trying to awkwardly talk to the students anyway, he told himself.

It came as no surprise then that Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world and the boy-who-lived, grew up alone with nothing but books and magic for four long years. Harry had learnt that when he was upset or angry Vernon would lock him in his cupboard without his books and once, when he had stood up to Dudley and his gang, they had taken great delight in kicking him to the ground and after returning to number 4 Petunia had taken away his books for a whole week.

After that Harry kept his emotions under heavy lock and key, some of the teachers had warned the Dursleys that he was displaying sociopathic traits as he never seemed to get angry or sad and suggested that they should get him help before it began too late. The Dursleys couldn't see the point in wasting their time doing so and carried on as they were, after all so what if the freak was a sociopath, so long as he kept up his chores they couldn't care less about what he was or did.

He spent most of his school life in an emotionally neutral state, Harry just assumed that it was part of growing older to hide your emotions and only show others what you wanted them to see, after all every adult he had met did the same.

By the time his eleventh birthday was around the corner Harry had mastered the art of masking his emotions and his control over his magic had come along leaps and bounds as a result.

He had quickly realised that his emotions made his magic have unpredictable results, but when he held back his emotions his magic became easier to control and direct, although at first it was harder for him to bring his magic to the surface and control it without his emotions doing the work for him.

It felt like he had nothing left to learn while he lived under the Dursleys, a lot of the magic he wanted to try would require more time and space, neither of which was available to him under the roof of the Dursleys. That is until one day, a week before his eleventh birthday a letter arrived.

Harry was used to receiving letters by now, often they were from the library, offering new books they had just received or a reminder that he only had so many days to return a book. This letter was not one of his normal letters, his library letters were inside thin white envelopes, this was a thick, tea brown envelope, sealed with wax.

None of his normal letters had mentioned where he slept either and this letter was clearly addressed to 'Mr H Potter, the cupboard under the stairs, 4. Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey'. He slipped the letters that were addressed to him into his cupboard and handed Vernon the rest, he then set about cooking breakfast for the Dursleys as well as his own much smaller breakfast.

After they had finished eating he washed the dishes and was allowed to return to his cupboard, once inside he opened the letter from the library first. As he had expected it informed him that he had one week left to return his current stack of books 'Great, I now have an excuse to go to the library on my birthday' Harry thought excitedly.

Putting aside that letter he then turned to the other, mysterious letter marked with 'Hogwarts' and upon breaking the seal two pages of parchment fell out Harry stared at the coarse parchment, if he had any doubt left this proved it was not from the library as they would never have been able to afford this quality of paper, he read the letter… and paused… and read it again.

After reading both pages back to front several times he let out a happy sigh, there was a school for magic and he was going to it! For a long time now he had feared he was alone, none of the children at his school had given off a glow the dark green of his magic.

Every so often he would see people in the street that also glowed, but they always looked slightly 'off'. Petunia always made sure to steer Dudley and Harry clear of them so he never got the chance to speak to them, however he had noted that their glow was often brighter than his and were always a different colour or shade.

His hopes came crashing down when Harry realised he was going to need the Dursleys permission to go to this Hogwarts, he quickly planned what he was going to say before quietly leaving his cupboard and passing the letter over to Petunia.

At first she only glanced at it, dismissing it as some school trip, but then after a double take she went white with shock "Vernon… Vernon he got the you know what"

"HE WHAT?! I thought we had stamped it out! They must have made a mistake, he stopped that freakishness years ago!" Vernon roared, his face bright red.

Harry was deciding between staying and trying to convince them to let him go to the school and running to safety, before he could make a decision Vernon turned towards Harry while muttering to Petunia

"You said this Hogwarts keeps the freaks away for most of the year right?" at Petunia's hesitant nod he continued "Maybe… Just maybe this isn't all bad then, we wouldn't have to deal with him for almost nine months, no need to feed him or have him underfoot… That must be why it was built I guess, to get his lot out of the way of us normal people."

His uncle looked like he was deep in thought, to Harry it looked like a gorilla having to choose which banana to eat. Vernon had started muttering to himself, so quietly that no one in the room could hear his words, after what seemed like an age he nodded to himself.

Turning to Petunia he told her "You will take him to get whatever they want him to have tomorrow, we can't have them sending him back after all, then we will decide how he will be getting to this 'Hogwarts'"

* * *

Petunia had taken him to London the next morning, Harry eagerly looked in every shop they passed but couldn't see any shop which sold any wizarding supplies so he turned to his aunt and asked her "Can you get all of my things in London then?"

"There is a street near here that caters expressly to your people" she had an ugly sneer on her face as she talked, as if it pained her to tell him "You're looking for a sign that says the leaky cauldron"

"Oh… have you been there before then?" Harry wondered

"Once" she looked lost in thought and at the terse reply Harry thought it best to leave her alone.

He noticed the sign she had mentioned a short while later and led her to it and at her instruction, held her hand and opened the door that had appeared. He found himself in a busy pub although he thought the word tavern might be a more appropriate term.

Although as he had never actually seen a tavern in real life, the descriptions in his books matched this building perfectly, even the old fashioned clothes everybody was wearing. He noticed Petunia had walked up to the counter and was speaking to the old man behind it "I'm looking for… digon alley?" she asked, sounding unsure of herself.

"Ah, Muggle are ya? Diagon Alley, it's just through here if you follow me" he led them into the back and tapped a strange pattern of bricks with a stick, it must've been some sort of code as the bricks parted before forming an archway which was big enough for Vernon and Dudley to enter side by side.

Petunia wasted no time in marching down the street, Harry wanted to stop and stare like the other children were doing however due to his aunt's pace he was forced to follow her closely. What little he did manage to see amazed him, there were stores that sold everything from animals to broomsticks. Each shop was unique and fascinated and Harry knew if he had the choice he would never leave.

Part of this decision was because he had never seen so many magical colours before, every person glowed with their own inner light and even the shops glowed brightly, sometimes that glow even spread out onto the street resulting in a kaleidoscope of colour. That many colours together should've made a mess but somehow it worked.

When he turned back to Petunia he saw she had started up the steps in front of a towering marble building that looked like it might topple over at any moment in Harry's opinion. This building was entirely coated in a harsh copper colour but this light rippled and flowed like water rather than just a stationary light, Harry wondered if the fact the light was nearly opaque meant it was stronger.

When he saw the creatures standing guard in front of the doors he thought they might be goblins, every book he had read agreed that goblins were greedy, mean spirited creatures so he felt it would be a good idea to be on guard around them. His wariness was rewarded when he saw that the entire building seemed to be staffed by goblins, even if they weren't as evil as his book suggested, upsetting them would surely see him thrown out.

The goblins that were working behind the counters were almost identical to the goblins standing guard outside, the only obvious difference was these goblins dressed in smart suits and were counting piles of gold coins.

Petunia marched up to the closest counter and snapped at the goblin "I wish to convert some money into your wizarding currency for my nephew"

The goblin paused his counting and leaned forward so that he was looking down onto Harry and about eye level with Petunia, to Harry it looked like he was extremely annoyed which was understandable. Harry knew that if somebody had interrupted his work to order him around he wouldn't be in the best mood either.

"You should know that the conversion rate is… ten of your pound sterling for a galleon" the goblin told her carefully, as if judging how she would respond

"When I was last here it was five pounds to every galleon, that seems a remarkable difference" she said stiffly

"Times have changed my dear. I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do about it" Despite his words Harry didn't think the goblin looked like he was sorry, but then a full toothed grin might have just been what goblins considered apologetic "Either tell me how much you want to convert or go waste someone else's time" the goblin replied sitting back in his stool smugly.

* * *

_So it begins… having gone back and rewritten most of this chapter to better fit the story I am actually surprised at just how much I feel like I have improved, so much so I personally probably wouldn't have gotten through this chapter originally without leaving. As such I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who gave this story a go, both when it was first started and those reading for the first time!_

_For those that are new welcome, I currently update the story every Friday._


	2. Vernon against the goblins

In the end Petunia had left the bank after the goblin had refused to offer her a better deal, eventually she stormed out of the bank marching Harry behind her and back through the alley.

Petunia had then called up Vernon and after agreeing to meet up she had gotten herself a drink from a nearby cafe, she had even given Harry the small biscuit which had come with it, which he thought was nice of her. By the time she had finished her drink Vernon had left Grunnings and had driven down to them.

"What's the matter, sweetums?" Vernon asked when he saw Petunia's expression 

"Oh Vernon, they say the rate has risen to a ridiculous amount since I was last there"

"That's outrageous! Don't worry pet, by the time I'm finished with them they will be begging to give us the best rate in the county!"

So once more, Harry was led through the tavern to the wall outside, as they hadn't bothered to ask the barkeeper for help this time Petunia ordered Harry to open the archway.

This presented a problem for Harry as he only had the memory of the pattern to go on, shrugging he tapped his fingers to the bricks in what he hoped was the same pattern the barkeeper had done. However this time nothing happened, Harry remembered how the man had used what he supposed was a wand to open the archway so he charged his finger with magic and tried once more, this time the arch opened the moment his finger touched the final brick.

As they went passed once more through the alley Vernon would mutter under his breath a range of insults such as "freaks" or "no sense of what normal people wear". Harry just rolled his eyes and used the time to look around, he couldn't help noticing that some of Vernon's observations weren't wrong.

After all they had magic why bother to use ladders to reach something, indeed apart from wearing robes these people wouldn't look out of place in the non-magical world.

Vernon walked straight up to the goblin without hesitation after Petunia pointed him out and Harry now noted that his plague read Goldclaw.

"You, what is the exchange rate from pounds to whatever money your lot uses" Vernon asked rudely, poking a finger into Goldclaw's face, once more interrupting his counting.

"As I told your wife earlier sir, it's 15 pound sterling to a galleon" Goldclaw replied stiffly, Harry saw two more guards stationed on the wall behind the goblin stiffen and their hands tensed on the spears they carried as if preparing for conflict.

Vernon, it seemed, had not noticed them and continued on his one man crusade so that he would waste as little of his own money on Harry as he could possibly manage, he countered with "You told her it was ten pound earlier! I don't think you have an official rate"

Harry half expected Goldclaw to react aggressively but Goldclaw only grinned and sat backwards, showing every one of his teeth and said "It is hardly my fault if she did not listen when I told her the rate I was prepared to give"

Now there was one thing Vernon hated above all else was if someone insulted his wife or son, he hated it even more than he despised magic. However to Harry's surprise he didn't explode like he tended to do in the face of his wife being insulted.

Vernon had decided to treat the goblin like a rival business man, one like he might face at Grunnings if he was at work like he was meant to if his time was not being wasted by this business man in front of him.

He started haggling with the goblin over how many galleons he would get for his pound, as Harry quickly grew bored of his uncle he started looking around the room. He noticed the other customers and even some goblins had paused what they were doing in order to stare at Vernon, it was as if they were in shock, like this was something they had never seen before.

Tuning back into the argument Harry heard Vernon say "so do you agree then on 5 galleons and 13 Knuts for a pound then?"

"Yes yes fine! I must say you are the most difficult customer I've had the displeasure of meeting for years! If it weren't for the infernal ministry law's I'd have you thrown out!" Goldclaw snapped, by now he outright glaring at Vernon as if planning how many ways he could kill the man.

Vernon either didn't notice the look or just didn't care and pulled out five 20 pound notes and Goldclaw's expression somehow got even more deadly "If you had that much money why did you argue over a single penny!" he growled

"Well I didn't get to where I am now by just giving away my money now did I? I'm sure you understand as well as I" Vernon actually chortled and Goldclaw looked ready to leap over the desk and throttle him, Vernon seemed very happy with outsmarting the goblin although Harry wondered how wise that might have been.

With a start Harry realised this was one of the only times he had ever seen his uncle look genuinely happy, 'it's weird' Harry thought 'he looks like a completely different man when he's happy.'

It made Harry sad that he was never good enough for Vernon, while he seemed to have no issue treating the goblins like a normal person, although even then Vernon doesn't treat other people very well anyway, Harry mused.

After they had collected a small fortune in Galleons from the goblins, Vernon had decided he might as well follow them around the alley since he was there already. As they went he would loudly complain whenever anything plainly magical caught his eye, this had the effect of every witch or wizard glaring at Vernon.

Never before had there been a man so huge and disrespectful within the alley, the fact he was clearly muggle made it so much worse for the witches and wizards present, even the most muggle loving glared at Vernon.

Indeed they were so busy mentally insulting the man they never even looked at the small boy hidden behind him, as such Harry Potter's first visit to Diagon Alley went unnoticed by the wizarding public. By the time they had bought half of the items on his list his uncle had grown bored of the alley and had gone back to work, this meant they were able to walk around much more peacefully.

Harry was surprised at how easily Petunia knew where to find his supplies and went straight from shop to shop without hesitation, but he didn't dare question her as to why, she was doing him a massive favour and she might just leave him if he asked a question.

Having carefully looked around as they shopped, Harry couldn't help deciding his first impression of the alley had been wrong, despite this being the most magic he had ever seen, the people he had ever seen they all seemed so boring.

Harry wondered how someone could have the ability to do whatever they imagined could live such a mundane lifestyle, Harry swore to himself he would never waste his magic and let it grow mundane.

Finally they only had a few items left and Petunia decided it would be best to send Harry alone to the wand store as she said it may take him some time and she had no desire to sit around and watch him try out wands, so she went off to buy him some robes and writing supplies.

Upon entering the store Harry was further disappointed, it seemed to just be a regular antique shop but instead of selling interesting trinkets it only sold sticks and dust.

Although that opinion quickly changed when Harry noticed that each box glowed in a way he had never seen before and the air itself seemed to shimmer vibrantly, the store sang out in a brilliant rainbow of colour, with each box making up a note. To Harry it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Suddenly a voice sounded from behind him "Ah Mr. Potter, welcome to my store, my name is Ollivander. Of course I expected you would be coming here, indeed I expected you to arrive sometime next week when the muggle raised children get shown the alley… But no matter, no matter… always expect the unexpected my father used to say.

"I remember your parents of course, they were brilliant. They would've changed the world itself… had they lived long enough, alas the unexpected happened and the same night which stopped a great and terrible war… cost us two of the greatest minds of the age and left you without an orphan."

This was the first time Harry had ever heard his parents be talked about in a positive manor "I do believe you are mistaken sir, I was told my parents died in a car crash, they couldn't be have been murdered surely"

"A car crash? I knew them well and a simple crash would never have been enough to kill them, no child it took a Dark Lord visiting them in the night for them to die. A creature that calls himself Lord Voldemort, although I knew him by another name when he was younger. I believe, as do a few others, that it was your parents that found a way to end the Dark Lord's reign."

The man then sighed deeply as if disappointed "However the majority of the wizarding world say you, a one year old child was responsible for defeating one of the most powerful dark lords of the era. Fools the lot of them, they run and hide yet blame others for their lack of action… You look just like them you know? You have James' looks but Lily's eyes and I would think her curiosity too"

Harry was stunned, all his life he had been told his parents were no good drunks who had died in a car crash, as Marge was so quick to remind him every time she came to visit. This is the first time he had even learnt their names and here this old man he had never met before was telling him that his parents were heroes, Harry couldn't believe it!

As he was mulling this over a tape measure had flown across the room and had started to measure him, he was fascinated to see a trail of magic going from the tape measure to the old man. The man seemed to notice as his eyes narrowed as he watched Harry follow the magic as it moved around him.

"Fascinating" was all he had said, after Harry asked what he meant he explained "Few wizards ever learn to observe magic, indeed it took me many years myself to learn how. For you to have this ability at such a young age is very curious, very curious indeed. I would advise against telling anyone else about this power Mr Potter, at least only tell those you trust to keep it a secret, this ability would further cement the public's obsession with you."

* * *

I always figured that Vernon would quite like the Goblins or at least like tricking them, the next chapter is almost entirely about wands and the lore which will play into the story later on


	3. Wands and Woods

Olivander started handing Harry wand after wand. Minutes passed with each wand barely reacting to his touch, having been lulled into thinking none of the wands would work. Harry was therefore shocked when the next wand, a particularly frail one, had spat sparks and burst into flames as soon as he held it up.

The wand clattered against the floor where it sat burning until Ollivander doused it with a flick of his wand, leaving behind the burnt stub of its handle and an oddly unsinged silver hair.

When he held the wands Harry could feel his magic try and rush into the wands, begging to be released however the wands seemed unable to channel his overeager magic quickly enough, this resulted in his magic becoming backed up. It reminded him of when Dudley had stepped on the hose and the water had swelled behind the block until it had burst.

Just like the water within the hose, his magic either broke through the barrier, leaving the wand broken, or rebounded the excess magic back into Harry with an unpleasant feeling of wrongness. A feeling which Harry had quickly gained a distaste for and would like to avoid for the rest of his life.

Soon he was surrounded by mountains of wands, while Ollivander had seemed to get happier and happier every time a wand reacted badly he had started to lose his cheer. By the time Ollivander gave Harry yet another wand, this time a "Holly and phoenix feather, 11 inches, slightly springy" Ollivander seemed to be at his wits end.

When Harry held this wand just like all the others his magic rushed forward, however this time the wand was able to channel it all out without issue and it seemed to Harry like the entire shop was filled with his magic.

'Finally, something I can use' he thought, just as the wand fought back against him, stinging him and forcing him to drop it onto the floor where it gave off a few weak sparks on its own before stilling.

"Well I never! Mr. Potter in all my years I have never come across this situation before. I know exactly which wand would be best suited for you, however, I regret to say I have already sold it some 60 years ago. The phoenix feather in that Holly wand would work wonders for you, the issue seems to come from the wood itself, you see Holly favours those that need help overcoming great emotion and works for almost any child under the age of 13…"

Harry shuffled his feet self consciously, he knew he had greater control over his emotions than any other child in his school as by controlling his emotions it further prevented the Dursleys to take notice of him. He didn't think anyone had ever noticed before and he had grown to hate it as he was the only one to need such control. Luckily Ollivander continued on, unaware of the child's awkwardness.

"The wands that have reacted best for you have all been woods of either cedar, fir, acacia or pine. Those woods often favour individuals who are independent, strong and most importantly one who has or will survive a mortal conflict. Other lesser woods would be beech, walnut and yew, those woods are most often seen in the hands of particularly strong witches and wizards, be that magically or physically.

"The wand I had sold was a phoenix and yew wand, the phoenix feather was the twin to that holly wand on the floor. I would suggest elder wood as the best suited for you, however, I myself do not poses elder wood as very few wizards are ever capable of dealing with one, which is why even if I did have elder here I would hesitate to give it to you.

"You see every time a wizard has bonded with an elder wand they have died soon after, this led people into believing if you burned elder wood you would see the face of a demon while planting elder wood would keep the demons away. This is in part due to the fact that without fail carriers of wands of elder having been either saviours or destroyers."

Harry faintly wondered if Mr. Ollivander always scared his customers out of buying a wand or if he was doing it just for him, as if reading his mind Ollivander grimaced

"I've said too much I see, a curse of age my boy, one I hope you will live to see for yourself… Now I believe a walnut wand will suit you best for the time being, the walnut tree is often mistaken for an elder tree but where the elder tree is stubborn, walnut is adaptive and will listen to almost any wielder should they be strong enough." Ollivander hurried into the back room and returned with a block of what must've been walnut.

"Hopefully the wand will allow you to pass through school without suffering from an unbonded wand, I have known students with great potential suffer simply because they have used the wrong wand. I will take the phoenix feather core from the holly wand and make you a new wand out of Walnut and the phoenix core. Since it is my own fault for not having a suitable wand it will come at no extra cost."

Ollivander smiled at Harry and he felt warmth well up within him, never before had anyone been as kind or helpful towards him as Ollivander was being and Harry felt unsure of how to process it.

"The wand will be finished within the week and I can either owl it on to you or you can come pick it up here in a week's time."

"I think it would be best if I came back in a week sir, the neighbours will say something if they see an owl arriving with a wand." Harry said cautiously

"Very wise, although you should know most post owls are often enchanted to be unnoticeable to muggles. If you still wish to come in person I will await you within the week then Mr Potter, you can pay for the wand once you have it." At this he held out his hand and Harry shook it before starting to leave.

As he opened the door Ollivander called out to him "The wand will never fail you, however as you age you may find it lacking in power. If that should happen come here, or to other wandmakers if you so wish, and think about getting another wand. Although it is rare it is not unheard of for a witch or wizard to use different wands depending on the circumstance. Take for example Albus Dumbledore, I myself sold him two wands while he was in school and a third after he graduated, I have heard he has since gained a fourth which he uses regularly."

Nodding he left the store and met up with Petunia

"Well boy, have you gotten your wand?"

"Mr. Ollivander said it would be ready by next week and that I will need to come collect it then"

Petunia sniffed disdainfully "Fine, come along then, the sooner we leave the better"

* * *

Unnoticed by the pair Mr. Ollivander watched them leave the alley and couldn't help frowning to himself, Harry Potter puzzled him. The boy seemed delighted by the magic yet wands regularly bonded with muggleborns or even half bloods raised within the muggle world rejected the boy completely.

To properly sell a wand you first needed to get an understanding of the personality of the customer, when Albus Dumbledore had first stepped through his door Garrick had known the boy would be strong. He had been attracted to the darker woods and yet Garrick had known the boy's morals were stronger than his lust for power.

Another powerful child leaped to Garrick's mind, a young lad calling himself Thomas Riddle. Just like Harry he had entered the store alone and seemed to sense the magic within the store, like Harry he had left a mountain of wands behind him.

Just like Harry he had been best suited for the yew and phoenix feather wand, the feather from Albus Dumbledore's familiar. Three powerful children, each having entered his store alone, each more mature than their years and every one had been destined for great things.

When Garrick had first seen Tom and how the phoenix wand had bonded with him he had hoped this meant Riddle was destined to be mentored by Albus, maybe become the next defender of light. He had the power for it and was similar to Albus when he was a child.

It was not to be however as instead of nurture the boy and see the potential in him, Albus had only seen the dark and alienated him, resulting in one of the most feared dark lords in British history.

Needless to say, Garrick had never regretted holding his tongue more than when he realised the great Lord Voldemort was little Thomas Riddle, who had been so pleased to get a wand and who had beamed with joy when Garrick had done a little magic trick at the boy's request.

Tom had been genuinely happy to see magic and was clearly excited to learn all he could, but Harry had only pretended to be awestruck, his perfect smile had never once reached his eyes, he would never be as great as Tom Riddle he would be so much more.

* * *

_More world building and "subtle" hinting at what the future may hold for little Harry Potter, wands will be a big part of the story and I have been thinking of starting another story based solely on wand lore as the wand lore on the Pottermore website really interested me._

_On my quest to update these chapters to a better quality I can definitely see how much I have improved since the beginning almost a year ago. I can only hope that in another years time I can look back on this chapter and improve it even more, perhaps in a few decades I may be unable to improve this any further. _


	4. Granger Danger

A week later Harry Potter journeyed to the Leaky Cauldron alone, when he reached Mr Ollivander's store a bushy haired girl was trying wands and Harry noted that the pile of wands next to her was far smaller than his had been.

Mr. Ollivander held up one finger in the universal sign of "In a moment" and handed another wand to the girl, Harry knew it was the one for her as her magic rushed through it easily as evident by the golden sparks that left the wand.

The girl's parents who Harry had not noticed beside her paid Mr. Ollivander for the wand and turned to go, the girl noticed him and exclaimed "Oh, hello, are you here to buy your wand too?"

Harry thought it a bit silly to ask this as the only thing this shop sold was wands so obviously he was here for a wand, but he thought that might be seen as rude so instead he replied with "Yes, Mr. Ollivander said it would be done by now" and looking past the girl at Ollivander he was pleased to see the man nod.

"Oh, why didn't you just buy one of the premade wands?" she asked, cocking her head to the side

"Because they didn't work for me?" Harry was quite confused as to what she wanted from him

"So you got one made for you? That must have been very expensive, I wonder if it would be better to get a wand made for me"

"Uh" this girl seemed to have learnt the ability to talk without needing to stop for breath, it was a new experience for somebody to be enthusiastic while talking to Harry. He was at a loss as to how to respond.

Luckily for him Ollivander stepped in and said "The fault lay with me Ms Granger so it was of no additional cost to himself and as you are still learning a wand built for you would lose its connection, and thus power, quickly as you mature and change. On that note here is your wand Mr Potter"

He handed Harry a wand box, but unlike the boxes on the shelves this box was black with an elaborate bronze swirling pattern, along the side of the box Harry's name had been carefully written. When he opened the box his eyes first caught the dark blue lining before he saw his wand.

The wand itself was light silver while the handle was a much darker shade, where the handle met the body of the wand the dark silver continued upwards as if it was absorbing the lighter silver.

Harry felt like the wand was singing just for him, he reached out to it and before he could even touch it magic sparked from him into his wand. It jumped from the box into his open hand and spat out a shower dark green sparks, the shop shook with the power released then and some of the boxes on the shelf started smoking.

The song which Harry had noticed on his first visit rose to a crescendo as each wand in the store sang loudly and to Harry it sounded like his wand was leading the choir of magic.

Ollivander clapped happily and with a wave of his hand cleared the smoke and put to right the minor damage done, "Well done Mr. Potter, it's been many years since I've had a reaction that strong within the shop!"

"Will that happen every time I hold it?" Harry asked, as cool as it had been Harry thought it would get inconvenient quickly.

"Perhaps after extended periods apart but so long as you don't leave it for months on end you should be fine, although I suspect that wand will always be eager to be with you Mr Potter." Ollivander said warmly

"You're… you're Harry Potter!" the girl said, pointing at him

"Hermione, it is rude to point" her mother admonished her

"How do you know my name?" Harry asked cautiously, as far as he was aware very few people knew of him, more than once he had to remind a teacher what his name actually was.

"You're famous, there's an entire shelf dedicated to you in the book shop here. I haven't gotten to read all of them yet but what I have read is amazing." For the first time she actually stopped to take a breath and Harry was amazed to see she barely paused before diving right back into her questions

"Is it true you killed a dragon at 6 and saved the eleven princess at 8? How about the spells you have made? Will you teach me some or at least how to make my own spells?"

"Erm… I haven't done any of that… I didn't even know I could do magic until I was 7 years old" Harry stammered out, he just wanted to pay Mr. Ollivander and leave but the girl was standing between them and he didn't think pushing her out of the way would leave a good impression.

Fortunately once again Ollivander seemed to detect his plight and loudly said "That will be 10 Galleons Mr Potter" after handing over the 10 golden coins he made to leave the store hoping to just be able to leave and go home in peace.

It was not to be however as the girl followed beside him, her parents following behind them.

"So you knew about magic by 7? That must have been so fantastic I only learnt when I got my letter but this was the earliest we could finish my shopping… What is it like to be brought up in the wizarding world? I expect I will need to learn a lot!"

"I wasn't brought up in the wizarding world, I was brought up by my Aunt and Uncle, I just read fiction books about magic and taught myself" Harry said uneasily, he didn't like talking about his childhood.

"Can you show me some magic? Please"

Sighing to myself, Harry concentrated and made a galleon rise out his pocket to float above his hand, it was then joined by a further 3 coins. Once he had the coins stable Harry then made them dance around each other, despite the simplicity of the magic it still made him extremely happy that he was able to do it.

Hermione seemed to agree as she looked on amazed and Harry found he liked sharing his love of magic, he just wished the girl wouldn't talk so much.

"That's amazing" she sighed "and you're doing it without a wand too"

"How would I have learnt to do it with a wand?" He asked incredulous "you just saw me buy it"

"Oh… of course, I guess it would be much easier to do it with a wand though, I expect it's quite tiring to maintain that right?"

"I suppose it might be" Harry agreed, shifting slightly as he walked "I've just gotten used to doing it. I guess I just don't notice the drain anymore."

With that Harry stopped the coins and returned them to his pocket, as if sensing his use of magic his wand twitched in his pocket so he summoned it and started playing with it instead.

Hermione was stunned as this scrawny boy did what her books had told her was impossible, they said that only the most powerful of wizards could do wandless magic and that it would take a great deal of energy to make something float and move even with a wand.

Yet this boy in sewn together clothing didn't even realise it was meant to be nearly impossible! When they left the tavern Harry bid them a hasty farewell and ran off towards his uncle's work.

The Granger family looked after him, Hermione was still trying to process how he knew so much more than her and yet played it off like it was nothing. Her parents however looked after him out of concern, he seemed too quiet and shy compared to other children.

They then looked down at Hermione and figured he might not be like that normally and was just overwhelmed by their daughter and waved their concerns away.

When the Grangers got home Hermione attempted to get one of her coins to float but no matter how hard she wished it to move the coin wouldn't shift at all, in frustration she touched her wand while still focusing and the coin shot up into the ceiling.

Her mother popped her head into her room and asked "What was that darling?"

"Oh nothing, I dropped a book" Hermione thanked everything she had that her mother hadn't looked up and saw bottom of the gold coin which had embedded itself almost the entirely into her ceiling.


	5. Pure Magic

Once he was back inside number four Petunia barely acknowledged him other than to tell him to get on with his chores, as he didn't want to upset his aunt in case she decided to stop him going to Hogwarts he put his wand in his new bedroom before getting to work. It had been a surprise when Petunia had told Harry that the spare bedroom was now his.

He suspected it was because the Dursley's were frightened by the letter as it had known that he slept under the stairs, he had gladly moved his few belongings into his new room before she could change her mind.

When he wasn't working Harry had read his school books with new found hunger, doing his best to memorise everything in his books and sometimes even trying to do what the books taught.

After reading that it was possible for those with great control over their magic to bring forth a visible aura Harry wanted to try it, however Vernon had strict rules over what could and couldn't be done in the house.

He had taken Harry aside and sternly told him "You are to be the best at this freak school, you hear me? I don't want to see you again for at least 9 months and I promise you if you get sent home for misbehaving or failing your lessons I will lock in that cupboard for the rest of your life!"

Later he had told Harry "There is to be no magic within the house, I don't want to hear it, see it or feel it!"

"But what about the magic I need to do for homework?" Harry had asked "I will need to use magic for my school work"

"Hmm, you do raise a good point, for once. As I said you are to stay ahead in your lessons… and I suppose that would include homework they set you over the summer… Very well there is to be no magic within sight of me, Petunia and especially Dudley! It is to be kept within your room with the curtains and door shut, anytime we have guests over you are to hide it all understand?"

Turning back to his book Harry thought 'I can't make an aura as I'm sure people will see it, but I might be able to make my magic visible somewhere smaller like my hand'

He concentrated on his magic and moved as much magic as he could into his hand and held it there, he had never thought to do anything like this before and was excited to see if it would work.

Sure enough his hand began glowing brighter and brighter till it hurt to look at it directly, when he glanced at the mirror he saw the light reflected in the glass. Normally mirrors didn't reflect his magical sight making him assume he wasn't actually seeing magic like one sees light.

His magic simply was able to identify magical sources and then showed them to him in a way he could understand, which explained why it had only developed after he had started channeling magic through his body.

Turning back to his glowing hand he imagined the magic leaving his hand to solidify above it in a perfect sphere, just the right size for him to close his hand around it. The magic followed his command and began leaking out of the pores on his hand and condensed above his hand, more and more kept coming out of his hand and he started feeling magically drained.

He was used to the feeling however from his previous magical experiments and pushed past it, his efforts soon paid off when it condensed into a ball made of pure magic about the size of a tennis ball.

It felt weightless but otherwise acted like a regular ball, Harry was able to pass it from hand to hand without issue. He then tried to bounce it off his wardrobe and while it did bounce back into his hand it left a large dark green scorch mark on the wood.

* * *

Harry decided against playing around with his magic after that and let himself fall asleep from the magical exhaustion. As he was sleeping he didn't see the shiny metal that started frosting over the ball of magic as it cooled from its lack of external energy.

The next morning Harry awoke with a massive headache which stayed with him as he prepared breakfast, he didn't notice the metal ball lying at the foot of his bed until after he returned to his room and stubbed his toe on it.

Harry briefly wondered where it had come from before remembering the ball of magic he had made the night before, he had assumed it would have dissipated overnight like the small flames he liked making.

Since the metal ball was almost the exact same size as the ball of magic it wasn't a hard guess to make, although when he picked up the metal ball he judged the magical version one to be a tad bigger and considerably lighter.

Deciding to experiment Harry followed exactly what he did the night before but this time rather than a ball he imagined a small cube on his palm, once it had formed Harry stopped feeding it magic and gradually the metal sheen started spreading from the top of the cube furthest from his palm downwards.

As it spread the cube lost its blinding light, it reminded Harry of ice forming on water in the winter. He then fed the cube his magic again which made the metal retreat and the cube began to glow again.

Harry looked at the sphere and decided he wanted to change it. Going on instinct he looked at the cube and imagined it becoming taller and rounder, forming a cylinder, his magic rushed over the cube and obscured its appearance.

When the magic pulled back he held exactly what he had imagined, he had also given the top of the cube a slight dip which perfectly matched the curve of the sphere.

Turning back to the sphere he picked it up with his other hand and gently put the sphere onto the stand he had just made. He then fed both pieces some magic concentrated on what he wanted carefully. Slowly the metal where the cylinder met the sphere started glowing as the two pieces of metal merged into one seamless piece.

When Harry stopped feeding it his magic the metal once again spread from the top down until it covered the entire object. After carefully looking it over Harry was amazed at what he had accomplished, despite the fact he knew they had started as two different objects nobody else would've been able to tell.

Harry wanted to experiment some more, but his magic was screaming at him as this new power he had learnt drained his magic like nothing he had ever done before.

He had come a long way during his private magical studies and had built up his endurance to magical exhaustion considerably, he knew that if he had tried to form the sphere when he had started learning he would've lost consciousness long before the sphere had finished forming.

Knowing he had reached his limit he put the object on his cabinet and tried to keep it out of mind as he read over his books again, eventually falling asleep while his magic tried to recover from the workout it had been put through.

During the night Harry's wand started twitching, it had missed his master's magic as it hadn't been once for a whole three days. It sent out invisible feelers that would be invisible to anyone without the ability to see magic, the feelers soon found its master's energy and tried to pull the magic towards itself.

But as the magic was so much denser than itself it was the wand that moved instead, it eagerly rolled across the cabinet where Harry had carefully left it and stuck to the source of the magic.

* * *

When Harry awoke the next morning he was amazed to find his wand stuck to the metal ball as if it was magnetic, he remembered how Ollivander had told him that his wand might be attracted to his magic but he hadn't thought he was being literal.

Like all his metal it glowed with his own green colour which explained why the wand had been attracted to it in the first place. Deciding to have some fun Harry picked up his wand and thought about his magic going into the orb, almost immediately the orb lit up.

He then made a groove appear at the top of the orb that was big enough for his wand to sit in it with room either side so he could easily take it out again. He laughed when his wand seemed to sing to him after he placed it in its new home and went on with his day happily.

Despite having so much more to learn, he barely spent any time on his school work as he was constantly tired from experimenting with his new metal making powers. He spent all of his free time creating and changing various metal objects, eventually he started seeing what it would take to destroy them although he left his wand holder alone.

He quickly learned that while creating the metal left him incredibly tired, he was slowly increasing his capacity, where a tennis ball had drained him after just a week he could now comfortably double the mass.

When he tried reversing his power he discovered something wonderful. Where summoning the metal drained him, turning the metal into magic and absorbing it he felt rejuvenated. Like some sort of magical battery.

* * *

Far away in the northern mountains of Scotland a wizened old man sat behind his desk deep in thought, he had just received a letter from his old friend Garrick Ollivander. He had been having a very pleasant day and he had always enjoyed talking with Garrick, however as he read the letter his good mood quickly dissipated.

Albus was unsettled at learning that the wand best suited for Harry was the very wand Tom Riddle, Garrick had also expressed a concern over how Harry's visit to the wand store was remarkably similar to Tom's first visit.

After Tom's descent into the dark arts, Garrick had agreed to inform Albus whenever he had a customer he considered troubled. In Albus' mind it was this early warning that had allowed him to save many students such as Severus, so he set about ensuring that Harry would likewise be monitored.

What surprised Albus was that the holly wand had denied Harry, one only had to read between the lines of history books to realise every 'prophesied' hero had a holly wand. This could be an indication that Harry wasn't the subject of the prophecy… He made a mental note to ask Garrick if Mr. Longbottom had purchased the holly wand in case he was the subject after all…

* * *

_So far in my quest to clean up the chapters this was the one that needed improving the most, funnily enough when I first wrote this chapter I was basically making stuff up on the spot._

_Now in case anyone gets confused with the end of this chapter Dumbledore is not a 'manipulative!Dumbledore', in my personal experience it isn't that unusual for a head teacher at a small school to worry about a students mental health._

_Then if you take into account that Dumbledore knows Voldemort believes in the prophecy it shouldn't be too hard to understand why Dumbledore is looking out for students that match the prophecy._


	6. A Magical Visit

The month of august passed uneventfully for Harry, he read his school books over and over again, practised some of the spells mentioned within the books and conducted his own magical experiments. He noticed that there seemed to be two different types of spells, some needed great control throughout such as charms while others only needed a "burst" and were done, such as transfiguration, although strangely his books didn't mention this, he assumed it would be something the teachers would tell them or possible later even in later years as he remembered people like Hermione wouldn't have any experience with magic like he and magical raised children did.

Incidentally, Harry found out about the two types of spells when he attempted to transfigure one of his aunts old chipped china cups into a china teapot, he did manage it however the tea pot wasn't thick enough and the chip from the cup was present on the pot, making it useless. When he tried Diffindo with his wand it split not just the cup but the desk underneath too, he had fixed the desk before Petunia had come up to tell him off for making a racket in her house, after that he decided against practicing destructive magic until he got to Hogwarts.

He made sure he knew what each subject was about and some useful facts for each just in case he got quizzed on them once he got there, he focused mainly on magic theory as he had known little about it himself since he had focused more on what he could do and how to do it better than try to understand the exact reason why it _did_ work. He had quickly discovered that some of the magical theory within the books was wrong or at least not entirely correct as Harry had done magic classed as "impossible" in the past, as such he decided to regard the _laws of magic_ hesitantly, one such example of the laws being incorrect was the metal orb he had summoned and formed just a few nights ago, it was this very orb which was taking up Harry's thoughts at the moment…

His books stated that to make something permanently with magic requires a sample beforehand, the old "energy cannot be made or destroyed only changed" the book said that to make something with just magic would cause it to fade unless it was regularly sustained by a witch or wizard, the book clearly said that magically made objects would show signs of decay or reversion after a few hours of being formed, almost three days later and his orb remained exactly as he left it after he had first made it. He looked at it now and focused in order to switch to his magical sight, he saw his magic pooling around inside the sphere like it was caught on a current, it even looked to be feeding his wand which was still lying in its groove on top.

'I suppose the orb could be making its own energy like some sort of reactor which would explain the swirling effect but that violates the rules of energy…' Harry put a small question mark next to that particular law within his book as he could neither confirm nor deny the law as his orb seemed to exist within a grey area, it was made without a physical sample so by rights the law as the book described it was wrong but Harry had used his own magic as the sample, he was pulled from his thoughts by his aunt calling for him.

* * *

As Harry was dissecting laws which had governed witches and wizards since they were first discovered and written another child on the other side of London was trying to make her coins float, yet no matter how hard Hermione wished it the coin refused to move, this annoyed her no end as Harry Potter had been able to do it subconsciously without even thinking about it, it did not help her mood that she knew if she just held her wand while focusing the coin would obey her every wish.

Hermione's mother found her daughter sat on her floor, a pile of gold coins beside her and her eyes watering in frustration

"Hermione dear, maybe you should wait until you can ask for help before trying? Harry did say he has been practicing for a long time"

"Which means I have to work at it! I've been able to do everything else in the book" Hermione cried out, she hated not being good at something which is one of the reasons she always worked so hard to be the best in school.

"Dear, there is no shame in admitting defeat and asking for help once you get to Hogwarts, they may even have a tip to make learning quicker after all"

Hermione listened to her mother at first and spent an entire day without trying to make a coin float, the next morning however she was found sitting down, on her floor, surrounded by coins and wishing she was already at Hogwarts.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was used to doing many jobs at once by now but every year the start of term was always a challenge, he thanked Merlin that Minerva helped him with the preparations since otherwise he would never be finished, as he worked his thoughts wandered to little Harry Potter. He had often wondered if he should go visit the child, aside from feeling responsible for being the one to give him to his muggle family he was also very fond of Lily and James, but in the end he always decided against going, one such excuse he often gave himself was that Petunia knew how to contact him in an emergency and he didn't want to intrude, however with Hogwarts just around the corner he thought it best he ensure Harry and his family knew everything they needed to know about Hogwarts.

He flooed McGonagall to tell her she was in charge of Hogwarts for the next two hours, transfigured his robes into a modern suit and walked down to the gates of Hogwarts and apperated to Privet Drive, incidentally he apperated to the exact same spot he had appeared to when he had delivered Harry eleven years ago. He walked up to their door and knocked, the door was quickly opened by a woman he quickly recognised as an older Petunia Evans "Ahh Mrs Dursley, I am Albus Dumbledore, we have spoken before in the past, as you may well know I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

"Hmm, I assume you are here to talk to Harry?" At his nod she pursed her lips together, "I guess you had better come inside then"

He followed her inside and looked around the hall, he smiled when he saw a family portrait but frowned when he realised there was only one child in the photo and he didn't match what Mrs Figg had said about Harry, in fact there was not a single photo of a boy with green eyes anywhere within the hall. Albus walked into the living room and still there was no sign that another child lived within the walls, he was starting to worry that something had happened and he hadn't been informed when Petunia shouted up the stairs "Harry, your new headmaster is here to talk to you."

A young boy walked down the stairs and Albus breathed a sigh of relief, he had black messy hair just like his father, even his glasses reminded Albus of James and behind the glasses Lily's brilliant green eyes looked at him and it felt like they were looking at his soul, if Albus wasn't a master Occlumens he would suspect the child of trying to use legilimens on him. That was something which seemed to belong solely to Harry, Albus thought, the child seemed more guarded than either of his parents were and moved like he was ready to bolt at any moment. He knelt so he was eye level with the child and said "Hello Harry, I am Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, I felt the need to check up on you and to answer any questions you may have"

The boy looked at him and seemed to be deciding which question to ask first, Albus couldn't help smiling, he loved a child's curiosity, it often knew no bounds and could come to the strangest of ideas, it was one of the reasons he insisted on staying at Hogwarts rather than take on another job elsewhere.

"Who wrote the laws of magic sir?" Ahh, it seemed Harry had decided on what he wanted to know first and what a question it was, Albus had to wrack his memory and found he could not remember "I am afraid I do not know my boy, why did you want to know?"

"Because they are wrong sir"

This made Albus pause, it was a well known fact in the higher wizarding circles that the rules of magic were guidelines more than a rigid set of instructions like many liked to believe but how would an eleven year old child know this?

"How do you know they are wrong? Perhaps you have just misunderstood them?"

"Well I've broken most of them already, before I even knew there were rules to magic and I never felt anything was impossible for me, it's only because I live here that stopped me attempting the majority of what I want to do" He said this in a rush as if he had been waiting a long time to get it out.

'Ahh, so accidental magic then, or not so accidental perhaps'

"May I see a demonstration?" Harry nodded and led Albus into his room, the child pointed at a metal ball sitting upon his desk, Albus looked at it but there was nothing unusual with it, the child's wand rested in a groove at the top of the sphere which was fairly normal as people tended towards wanting to show off their wand when it was not on their person, indeed the only unusual thing was that the metal was very highly polished, so well polished that it looked almost identical to mithril… by merlin it didn't just _look_ like, it _was_ mithril.

Albus was stunned, he had seen the mythical metal before of course, his delumintor was made by mithril and had been a gift from Lord Ranok after he had helped pass a pro-goblin law before the war with Riddle had gained traction, but he had never seen so much Mithril in his life, so to see such a large quantity of the metal in one place was astonishing and for the child to just use it as a wand holder was unbelievable!

"My boy, wherever did you get it?"

"I made it" the child seemed pleased with himself but Albus, so entranced by the sphere failed to note it.

"Yes but where did you get the metal from and who gave it to you?"

"I told you, I made it all myself, I was experimenting with magic and I ended up with the metal, it's how I know the laws of magic are wrong, I made it without a sample and yet it hasn't faded like the book said it would so the laws must be wrong"

Albus prided himself on staying in control no matter what was thrown at him but now he was truly speechless, for generations wizards had been trying to learn how to craft mithril. For as long as wizards could remember only the goblins held the secret to make anything out of mithril, even Albus himself had dabbled with the metal after he had discovered the uses of dragon blood, thinking the power he had found within the blood would be enough to do _something_ with the metal be he too had failed and yet, a boy barely eleven had managed it!

"This my child… is called mithril, it is the most precious metal on earth for only the goblins can use it… it is impossible to change, damage or melt for it repels all magic meant to damage it and takes in that which can strengthen it.

"The four founders of Hogwarts were said to have four objects made of mithril which were enchanted, gifts from the goblins it is said although the goblins have since claimed otherwise." Harry looked stunned and rightly so Albus thought, he needed to press how important this power is, with shock Albus remember a line of the prophecy 'he will have power the Dark Lord knows not' was this the power Riddle knew not? Giving himself a mental shake he spoke once more to the child "There is nothing that can affect objects made with mithril, this is why goblin made armour and weapons are in such high demand, each have to be hand crafted by a goblin and make the wearer effectively invulnerable, they have weaknesses of course, the armour is often limited in that only physical or magical attacks get stopped and even then some spells can bypass the armour entirely but a witch or wizard facing someone dressed in goblin armour will have to get extra creative in order to defeat them."

"But I just wanted to make my magic visible! When it fell to the floor it cooled into the metal and when I fed it magic it changed back so I was able to change its shape by imagining what I wanted it to do"

"Amazing, I assume only your magic can change it… if I were to try it would repel me I'm sure" he stroked his beard deep in thought, he had completely forgotten why he had wanted to see the boy in the first place, he wanted to believe the boy but history was against him so just to prove the boy was not lying he asked "Harry, could I ask you to make a new object for me?"

The child nodded and screwed his eyes shut, causing Albus to chuckle, the laughter faded when the child's magic leaked out of the pores on his hand like a liquid and condensed, floating above the palm of his hand, it then reshaped and Albus recognised his own face, hand holding a beard. It looked crude and one would have to know what it was to see but Albus did not care, he watched as the boy lower his hand but the model stayed, floating in mid air, Albus looked and saw the child was using magic to keep it there, the connection between child and magic broke and the model fell into Harry's hand but not as "liquid" magic, but as pure, solid mithril.

Wordlessly Harry gave it to Albus who examined it and prodded it with his own magic, as expected where his magic touched the metal it was pushed back but he noted the metal heated when he forced his magic onto it and suspected if he truly willed it he could break into the metal, unwilling to do so however he retreated his magic and made to hand it back to Harry.

"Keep it, I made it for you" the boy had said with a smile and Albus had happily pocketed it, he would spend many a night after that day looking at and experimenting with the model in the hope to recreate it himself.

He and Harry had discussed the finer points of magic for well over an hour before Petunia had come up stairs to ask the professor if he was planning on staying for dinner "If it is no bother to you I think there are some things I need to tell you and your family so dinner would be lovely"

Albus was shocked at how mature Harry seemed, it was only in his lack of knowledge that revealed his true age, aside from physical appearance of course, Albus was looking forward to having the child at Hogwarts.

Albus had even dismissed Garric's warning as the child was the mirror opposite of Tom, he was curious like Tom but was more open and friendly than Tom had been when Albus had given him his letter but both had the same control over their magic and both had been using it deliberately, but while Tom had used his magic to torment and manipulate others Harry had only researched and experimented, where one had fallen the other would rise Albus was certain.

* * *

When Petunia had first opened the door and saw Albus Dumbledore she had mentally freaked out thinking he was here to punish them but when he only introduced himself calmly she had relaxed, albeit slightly, she thought frantically as she had led him into her home and noticed that Dumbledore had seen the lack of Harry in the photos, she called for Harry and while she waited for him she was planning an excuse, it seemed one was not needed however as the boy had quickly taken Dumbledore up to his room and left her alone.

At first she was glad he did not want to talk to her, but after two hours she got impatient and had hinted it was time for Dumbledore to leave, he had instead invited himself to eat dinner with them so she had been forced to cook dinner for the first time in years, when Dumbledore had come downstairs with Harry her hatred of the man had come back full force, she wasn't worthy to attend his school but little Harry Potter was enough cause to visit in person?

She had told Vernon and Dudley about Dumbledore when they had come home and so dinner had passed without a single word said, the Dursleys stealing glances at the old man throughout, finally Dumbledore had pushed his plate away and said

"I thank you for that most excellent dinner Mrs Dursley, now the reason I came here was to firstly ensure you knew how Harry would be getting to Hogwarts and secondly to warn you of how he may be treated. Harry is seen as a celebrity within our world which is why I sent him here rather than to a magical family as I mentioned in the letter when he was a baby, I have tried to suppress how Harry is seen by our society but he is still seen as a national hero, I would suggest he wears some form of hat when he gets on the train as his scar is what people will be looking for as his image has remained unknown.

"Harry will be expected to be on the Hogwarts express by eleven a.m. as that is the time the train will leave, I trust you still have your ticket as without it your belongings may be lost, he will be allowed to return home during the Christmas break, should you wish to communicate with him an owl will always be able to find him or a muggle letter will also make its way to Hogwarts although that method is far slower."

He told the Dursleys and Harry more about what to expect at Hogwarts and in between before standing up and turning to Harry one last time "I understand you have been told this already by Garric… Master Ollivander, but you should try and keep your discoveries to yourself and trusted friends as they will see it as further proof of your celebrity status, well I do believe that concludes everything, I will see you September first Harry, I wish you all the best." With that the man seemed to spin on the spot and vanish into thin air with only a small pop to indicate he had left.

* * *

_Summer holidays are now officially started for me now that my work for the show is over and now that I have this chapter out the way I can finally get on with the story, I hope to be able to get a lot of chapters written before I return to my final year of education in 5 weeks time, thank you everyone for being so patient with this story!_

_Also biggest chapter by twice as much as the second biggest so hurray to that, little reward for the wait._


	7. Beginning of an era

Vernon drove Harry up to Kings Cross at eight a.m. to ensure Harry was going away and so that he could get on with his day, he dropped Harry on the curb and helped him move his trunk onto a cart then said "Remember boy, I don't expect to see you till next summer, be good or else." With that he drove off leaving Harry to wander onto the station to the barrier, Dumbledore had not actually said how to get onto the station, only that he needed to go to the barrier between 9 and 10, he could see that the barrier was glowing with a white light, Harry had theorised that human or "active" magic was all different colours, seemingly random, anything touched by a witch or wizard's magic shared the colour with whoever cast it, this is what gave Diagon Alley such a rainbow like effect as lots of magic had been cast over the years all overlapping each other.

Now faced with a new colour Harry wondered if that meant the barrier was enchanted by a witch or wizard with a white colour or if this was something new, Harry had been trying to figure out where magic actually came from as he never saw any magic enter him, he only saw the magic he cast leave meaning it must come from some inner source like with his orb, he suspected he just wasn't powerful enough to properly see where magic came from, if magical objects did need constant refilling did that mean someone had to come along and "refill" the barrier before people arrived? If so would that mean the white colour is Dumbledore's as he had not seen his colour when he visited as it was hidden, he could tell Dumbledore _had_ an aura but at the same time Harry could not actually see it.

Harry pushed these thoughts away and walked up to the barrier, he placed his hand on it and as he expected his hand went through the barrier as if it didn't exist, he stood back and made sure his hand was still there in one piece before stepping forward and through the barrier, there was no indication he had stepped through anything apart from a bright red steam engine which had appeared on a previously empty track, looking around he realised that despite the fact he could still see the entire station everyone else had seemed to vanish and there were no other trains in the platforms, Harry was amazed, this was the first time he had seen something magical which could not be replicated anytime in the foreseeable future by Muggles, it was irrefutable _magic_.

Since Harry had many hours to kill before he even had to consider finding a compartment he went up to talk to the driver about the train, however, he said "I only drive the train kid, I don't know how it works, if I did understand it I wouldn't be here." Hogwarts a History only said it was a magical train, Harry could see that where a steam boiler would normally be there was a big block of the same white magic from the barrier, the wheels of the train also glowed and where they touched the tracks the glow spread about 20 feet down, Harry went out on a limb and pulled a piece of gravel to him from the track ballast and dropped it onto the tracks, as he expected the rock rebonded towards him before it even got close to the rails, Harry assumed this was to stop anything getting on the tracks and forcing the train to stop.

Harry decided to find a carriage as he wanted a good one before people started turning up, he settled on one about mid way up the train and then brought some magic to his hand, since Dumbledore visited him and told him about mithril he had experimented with what he could do but was severely limited by power as when he had tried to summon a large amount of magic he had fallen unconscious and when he woke again he was left with a large puddle of mithril rather than a refined solid shape like normal, while it was interesting it was completely useless to him and so he had tried to turn the metal back into raw magic inorder to change it, however he could only melt small areas of the metal which had left scorch marks on the floor, in the end he had just absorbed the magic back into himself which had left him full of energy similar to when he had eaten all of Dudley's sweets one Halloween.

Now that he was on the way to Hogwarts he felt it apt to try again but this time tried a much smaller sample size, he pooled his magic until it was about the size of a golf ball, rather than let it "cool" naturally he tried to force it to solidify by imagining the molecules of the magic to slow, immediately the mithril began to frost over the magic but rather than go top down like normal to started from where his hand held the ball, once he had the mithril golf ball he then imagined the molecules speed up again and then held them halfway between magic and solid, the ball looked like it was melting and rather than feel metalic it now felt more gel like. Harry experimented with this new discovery and found he could physically manipulate the mithril now, this made it easier for him to shape it rather than depend on imagining every single movement in his head.

A short while later he heard footsteps and forced the mithril back to raw magic and then absorbed it before the compartment door opened to reveal Hermione Granger, the girl from the wand store

"How do you do it?" She demanded

"Do what?" Harry was slightly panicking thinking she had seen him with the mithril when he had told Dumbledore he would not show anyone

"How do you make the coins move so effortlessly!" She shut the door behind her and sat opposite him as she said this

"Oh, that! Erm, well I just do it…"

"That isn't an answer! I've been trying to 'just do it' all month but I can't get it to work without a wand" The girl looked quite angry now and Harry was mentally preparing to flee the compartment if it got any worse, Dudley and his gang had taught Harry how to read levels of anger in others and whenever Dudley got this angry Harry often ran as far away as he could, in an effort to calm the girl he mentally summoned a few coins from the coin pouch on the side of his trunk above him and made them dance in his hand, looking up he was alarmed to see the girl look even more angry and quickly said

"I'm just trying to figure out how I do it" He eventually figured out he carefully imagined what he wanted the coins to do, then planned how the coins would achieve his goal and then finally forced his magic onto the coins to make them follow his instructions.

"What I do is three things, from what I can tell to do magic requires three major factors; imagination, planning and power. You first have to imagine what you want to achieve, in this case make the coins leave the bag, come down to my hand then dance in my palm, then you have to plan every detail on how to achieve this, then finally you need enough magical power to make them do what you want."

"How is that any different to what I do?" She seemed to have cooled down now that she had an answer and was more curious than aggressive.

"Why don't you show me what you have tried?" Harry didn't really know how he did it himself but in the interest of self preservation wanted to appease the girl.

Harry made two of his coins leave his palm and into Hermione's before cutting of his magic making them fall, Hermione knew what she wanted, she wanted the coins to rise out of her palm and spin around, she then planned how they would do this, but then she realised she didn't really know how to make her magic power the coins, whenever she used any other spell her magic just left her wand without any prompting, as such she just focused all her attention on making the coins follow her instructions, as she expected the coins didn't even twitch

"Are you feeding it any magic?" Harry could see the power building within Hermione but she wasn't releasing it

"I don't know how to feed it magic!" Hermione snapped, fed up over yet another failure, Harry was stumped, for as long as he could recall he didn't need to think about how to push his magic into anything, it just did.

Harry pulled his magic to the surface subconsciously and made his hand glow slightly, Hermione paused in shock at seeing such a casual example of how far ahead of her Harry was, after she had returned how she had read some of the books about the "Life of Harry Potter" and having met him she decided the books weren't all that accurate but they did get how good at magic he was, some books called him the new Merlin and for an eleven year old just introduced to magic to see someone the same age make his hand glow while also having several golden coins dance complicated movements when she couldn't even get one coin to move was humbling.

Harry noticed none of this of course, so focused internally on trying to figure out how he made his magic work

"From what I can tell, every witch or wizard has magic flowing through them, like a river, where it comes from and where it goes I haven't figured out yet but when ever we perform any magic we tap into that river, I imagine that the more you use magic and channel it the more magic you have available as your body gets used to it, like exercising a muscle. Try and imagine that magical river and tap into it while focusing on what you want to achieve."

Hermione thought she understood and thought of that river Harry had described, to her shock, she found that once she thought of that internal river she felt something within her, she held onto that feeling and focused once more on the coins, they still remained stationary but Hermione realised she only found the river, she hadn't tapped into it, she imagined sticking her finger into it to channel its power, the coins in her hand trembled despite her hand being stationary, mentally she stuck more of her hand into the river and the coins trembled even more, once or twice even rising a fraction, mentally she stuck her entire arm into the river and the coins jumped out of her hand and followed a rather crooked route that while it wasn't quite what she planned was still close enough that she could say it was her making the coins move.

"I did it! I did it!" Hermione stood up and hugged Harry then proceed to dance around the compartment, Harry had seen how difficult it had been for Hermione and once she had achieved it the result was quite poor in Harry's opinion, if Hermione was average then how far ahead was he compared to others, he had never interacted with a witch or wizard before Hermione and Dumbledore and although he could feel Dumbledore's power he hadn't seen him cast any magic but Harry strongly suspected he was nowhere near Dumbledore's level, at the same time he seemed to be several leagues ahead of Hermione who was only just figuring out how to apply magic, of course she had just learned about magic so maybe other children raised with magic would be closer to himself.

Hermione then went through all the spells she had learned and made Harry help her whenever she got it wrong or it could be improved, eventually the clock struck eleven and the train started to leave the station, the compartment door opened once again and a redheaded boy looked in "Is this seat taken? Everywhere else is full"

Hermione looked at Harry who just shrugged so she said "No it's just us, feel free, we were just practising magic" Harry shot her a look "Well okay, _I_ was practising magic, Harry was helping me."

The boy glanced at Hermione then at Harry, immediately he froze and his eyes flicked upwards to his forehead "Blimey, your Harry Potter"

Rather than reply Harry looked back down at his book, he always hated people staring and when Dumbledore told him he was famous for surviving what killed his parents he knew he didn't want to be known for that, if he was to be well known it was to be from his own merits not his parents sacrifice, the boy seemed to realise he had done something wrong as he stuck out his hand and said "I'm Ron Weasley, it's nice to meet you" Harry glanced up at his hand and shook it not wanting to make an enemy on his first day then went back to his book, Ron then held out his hand to Hermione who said "Hermione Granger, it's nice to meet you."

Ron sat down next to Hermione and kept glancing up at Harry, just as Ron was about to leave the compartment due to how awkward it was for him, Hermione said "So were you raised in the magical or the muggle world?"

"Magical, my whole family is magic, what about you?"

"My parents are both muggles, I only knew about magic when I got my letter but as I was on holiday, I was only able to get my supplies a month ago where I met Harry"

Both of them then looked at Harry who sighed and said, "I was raised by my muggle relatives, I've known about magic for a few years now, I didn't know about the wizarding world until I got my letter."

"How would you not know about the wizarding world if you knew about magic?" Ron asked amazed.

"I realised the strange things I could do was magic and taught myself how to use it" Harry replied simply, not wanting to go into details, almost a decade under the Dursleys had taught Harry to horde secrets and to only reveal the bare essentials, if he didn't then it would often come back to hurt him some time later.

"Wicked, like what" Ron didn't seem to pick up Harry's reluctance and even Hermione looked excited to see what Harry had learned

Realising he would need to show something Harry summoned the two coins off the floor, the four he had placed in his pocket and also another four from the bag above him, they lazily flew around the compartment each going a different path, one moving around Ron's head, another moving through Hermione's bushy hair, two where flying around each other like aerial fighters, he then focused and each coin multiplied, it was a trick he had learnt in his cupboard but unfortunately after a short time they would join back together, it looked impressive though and that was what he was going for, he then turned each coin into a random colour a rainbow of coins where flying around the compartment, finally he pushed a small amount of magic into the coins so they glowed. Ron was amazed, here was the boy-who-lived, the boy Ron had grown up hearing about and now he was sat opposite him watching him do some quite extraordinary magic well beyond his own power, he had never even seen Bill or Charlie display this level of control.

Harry then quickly made the coins stop and return to his pocket just before the door opened once more and a blond haired boy walked in like he owned the train, "Word is that Harry Potter should be on the train, have you seen him?"

Harry looked down at his book and said "no, haven't seen him" Ron snorted causing the boy to look at him "No need to ask who you are, red hair, hand-me down robes, you must be a weasley" Ron's face flushed red but before he could respond the boy turned to Hermione "Muggle clothes, no hygiene, never seen you before, I assume you are nothing more than a filthy mudblood" Hermione didn't know what the word meant but by the way the boy said it she figured it was some kind of slur, finally the boy turned to Harry "Once more muggle clothes, messy appearance, your not just a mudblood, your a poor mudblood, this is priceless"

"Ha, jokes on you, he's Harry Bloody Potter" Ron blurted out, before covering his mouth with an "opps"

"Thanks Ron, cheers for that" Harry said wryly, there went that plan of keeping his identity a secret

"You wish you were Harry Potter, dressed like that you make Wheasley look rich" with that he left the compartment, maybe the plan to keep his identity a secret was going to be easier to uphold after all.

"Who was that?" Hermione asked after a moment's pause

"Draco Malfoy" Ron spat "His father was a death eater who claimed to be innocent and bought his way out of jail, my dad hates him."

"What's a death eater?" Hermione asked timidly, aware that Ron was on a short temper

This launched Ron into an explanation of the last wizarding war, Harry tuned it out and went back to his book as Dumbledore had already told him about the war when he came to visit and he had no wish to hear about it all over again, he happened to look out the window and noticed how fast they seemed to be traveling, much faster than any train, let alone a steam train, had any right to be going at.

Harry thought back to his inspection of the train earlier in the day, he guessed that the wheels must be enchanted to reduce friction and the tracks must also help the train move faster, add the magical engine and they could easily challenge the fastest train in the muggle world, Harry wondered what he would do if he was designing the train, to start with the would want to make the rooms bigger with an expansion charm like he saw in diagon alley, next he would use some kind of space manipulation to make the journey quicker, he had read that portkeys could only safely transport about a dozen people before there started to become a risk of the portkey collapsing mid journey so the train couldn't just teleport everyone to Hogwarts but he might be able to connect something similar to a portkey to the rails and then using magic and what ever made portkeys work to make a magical wormhole which the train would then go through using the rails as an anchor so that it wouldn't get lost. He would also use lightening charms to make the train lighter improving the speed, of course that could be what was happening anyway, he would have to ask a teacher once he got there to find out for sure.

As Harry was revolutionising magical travel Ron and Hermione were debating the traditions of the magical world, Hermione being of the opinion that everywhere should work like what she grew up with while Ron wanted to maintain what he grew up with, both left Harry alone as they were slightly afraid of him now that he had shown off his power, finally the sun started setting and Hermione left to allow the boys to change into their robes, then they swapped, Harry and Ron standing guard outside, eventually the train stopped and they left the train onto the platform, they then walked up to the towering man calling out for first years, Harry had never seen a man so huge before in his life, Vernon could hide behind him and not be seen!

Harry then got into a boat followed by Ron, Hermione and a boy introducing himself as Nevil who was softly crying, when Hermione asked what was wrong he replied "I've lost my toad Trevor, my gran is going to kill me"

"If I had a toad I'd be thrilled to lose it, don't know what he's complaining about" Ron whispered to Harry, not quietly enough though as Nevil started crying harder and Hermione shot Ron a dark look.

When they saw Hogwarts everyone was stunned, none more than Harry as he could see not just the beautiful castle but the magic flowing through it and around it, looking at the water at first he thought he saw the magic of Hogwarts reflected but then realised it was a giant creature following the boats a few feet below them, the darkness and colour of the creature made it almost invisible, Harry could only see it as it was glowing with its own white energy, a tentacle was connected to each boat moving it along, this must be the giant squid "Hogwarts: A history" spoke about.

Once they reached the underground harbour they were introduced to Professor McGonagall who lead them through the castle, already Harry was utterly lost and the constant sight of magic was giving him a headache, where in muggle Privet Drive magic was a pleasant highlight in filled to the brim with ancient magic, Hogwarts was like staring into the sun for Harry, by the time they got to the entrance hall Harry was mentally blocking his magical sight, as such when the ghosts appeared it was a complete surprise to him.

"I say, what do we have here?" One of the ghosts asked having noticed them first

"First years by the look of them" Another replied

Harry was getting over his shock and a bombardment of questions were being raised within his mind; how do ghosts exist, can only magical people become ghosts or can everyone become one, can magical creatures become ghosts, what does a ghost see when they go through solid objects, can they do anything or do they just walk around all day, can muggles see ghosts?

As these questions circled Harry's mind the great doors opened and they were led up the great hall, the other first years looked around amazed, even the pompous Draco Malfoy from the train looked awe struck, Harry, however, was less impressed by the hall, there was nothing magical going on aside from the floating candles, which seemed like a fire hazard waiting to happen, what would happen if the wax fell onto the students below? Harry's view of the wizarding world was finally soured by the ragged hat placed onto the three legged stool, did they not have any clothes fixing spells? When it started singing Harry's interest picked up but then came the wait, why was there only one hat, they could have a hat for everyone and just sort everyone at the same time rather than sit still and wait to be told your house.

When Mcgonagall called "Potter, Harry" he was feeling rather impatient, he had only eaten sweets since breakfast which was at 6 am, it was now close to 7 pm and he was starving, he walked up to the stoll ignoring all the whispering and pointing and sat down, the hat was then placed onto his head when it promptly slipped over his eyes, to his shock the hat then started talking to him within his mind.

"_I will try and make this quick so that you may get your dinner, Godric knows you need the food, as you know each house prides itself on different characteristics and it is my job to find the best match for you, you have plenty of cunning, no doubt about that, but no ambition, that removes Slytherin, you are not brave, you would rather run than confront a problem, you are also not a team player, that removes Gryffindor, I sense you would have strong loyalties if you had anyone to be loyal too, you also know the importance of hard work and determination, Hufflepuff would benefit greatly from having you amongst them, however you work hard for the sake of knowledge rather than the work itself, already you are trying to work out how our world works, Rowena would have adored you, assuming you have no issue with my choice?" _Harry shook his head and the hat said aloud for the entire hall to hear "Better be Ravenclaw then."

* * *

_Finally at Hogwarts, I consider this and the last chapter to be like a hill in a bike race, you have to get through it but it's the most unpleasant part of the journey, now that they are out of the way it should be smooth sailing, mentally I already have the entire first year planned and now it is just a matter of actually writing it down! _

_For those interested the fastest train record in 1990 was 321 mph by the French SNCF high-speed train, TGV, the distance from London to Edinburgh is about 400 miles, with the Hogwarts express going straight from London to Hogwarts with no stops (When there are no dementors or death eaters that is) combined with magic the train taking from 11 am till around about 7 pm is utterly ridiculous, currently you can go that distance in about 4 hours with multiple stops, on top of that you could just enchant the express with the flying charm like on Mr Weasley's car mixed with the notice me not on the Knight bus to be even quicker._

_Another point of interest is in the filming of the first movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone to those in America which is a lot of you apparently) they did use real candles with wire which resulted in boiling wax dropping onto the actors below, little bit of trivia for you there, take notes there will be a test!_


	8. For the wonder of magic

Harry went over to the table of blue and bronze which were cheering for him, Harry couldn't care less about them, they knew nothing about him except what fictional books had written and yet they treated him like the next merlin simply because he was the only one to survive Voldemort.

The rest of the first years got sorted quickly and Dumbledore stepped up to the podium and started talking, Harry was so hungry he couldn't even focus on what he was saying, when people started clapping he automatically joined and then heard the words he had been waiting for all evening "Tuck in" food magically appeared before him and he immediately started piling food on his plate and into his mouth, he only cared about ensuring he got to eat as much as he could before he had to talk to the others.

When he finally looked up from his food he noticed a prefect looking at him with raised eyebrows "hungry?" she asked, a hint of humour in her voice, rather than reply Harry only nodded and looked around, the boy from the compartment, Ron, was at the Gryffindor table eating almost as fast as himself but was talking at the same time, spitting small chunks of food over the table, Harry noticed that Hermione was sitting a few seats down from Ron, talking to those around her, he didn't recognise anyone at the Hufflepuff table nor his own table, on the Slytherin table however he saw the blond boy, Draco Malfoy, was glaring at him, when he made eye contact Malfoy stood up and walked over to him followed by two boys behind him, reminding Harry of bodyguards

"Why didn't you tell me you were Harry Potter? I could have helped you make a wise choice of house rather than sit with these people" He said with a sneer, before Harry could respond the prefect stood up and said "Go back to your own house table, it is against the rules to move around during the opening or closing feasts"

Malfoy sneered at her but seemed unwilling to make a scene in the middle of the hall and strutted back to his own table

"What a git" The prefect said as she sat back down to her own meal "Not even here for an hour and he acts like he owns the school" Harry smiled at her as he shared the same thought, realising that as an older year she could tell him about what they would be learning he gathered his courage and asked "What are the lessons like here?"

"Well that depends on the year, as first years you will mostly be doing theory with a bit of practical, during the second year it will be almost entirely theory then in third practical, with fourth and fifth year being a mix of both and sixth year is normally entirely theory and seventh is just going over the old materials to ensure you know them all. I'm Penelope Clearwater by the way." She stuck out her hand and Harry shook it saying "Harry Potter"

"Yes, I know who you are" She said giggling "You would struggle to find anyone here who doesn't know your name, you're quite famous you know"

"Famous simply cause my parents died while I survived" He replied sourly, he hadn't been at Hogwarts for more than an hour and already somebody had brought up his celebrity status

"No, people look up to you for being able to defeat the worst dark lord while only a baby."

"Is that not the same thing? If my parents had lived I wouldn't be known as 'the-boy-who-lived' and nobody would know who I was"

Penelope couldn't seem to have an answer so shrugged and said sorry for bringing it up then went back to eating, Harry wanted to hold a grudge and ignore her but no one else on the table seemed like they wanted to actually talk to him so eventually he broke down and asked her to talk some more about Hogwarts, she smiled and explained about the staircases, portraits and hidden doors, Harry knew some of them anyway from 'Hogwarts: A History' and from what Dumbledore had mentioned when he had come to visit, it was still very interesting to hear about it from someone inside the school however as Penelope often gave her opinion or an example on what she described such as "Skip this staircase every day of a new moon, it often vanishes right as you step onto it, in my first year I found that out when I fell into it on the way to charms." or "This tapestry will let people through only if they run at it, but only if you can see a green apple on the tree, if its a red apple its a solid wall and it hurts when you run into it, I had a massive bump right on my forehead, it was awful"

Eventually it was time to leave and after a confusing closing speech from Dumbledore Penelope and a male prefect led the first years through the school and to their common room, when they got there Penelope knocked on the knocker and the eagle moved to face her and sang a riddle

"I'd grab ahold of all I can

Relentless in my spree

Amidst the crimes I hung a man

And then the man hung me

I met some more of my own kind

We really got along

In open hid where none could find

Except the dead and gone.

What am I?"

Rather than answer Penelope looked to the first years, while she projected an image of confidence inside she was desperately trying to figure out the answer, the knocker was enchanted so that whoever knocked would get a riddle just at their own ability, so if a first year knocked it would only be "I have a head and tail but no body" or something equally easy, of course the idea of an easy riddle is to the perception of the person answering the riddle so the riddle may not be _easier_ just more people answered it correctly.

That was why the fifth year prefects always led the first years in Ravenclaw, it was assumed that the fifth year prefects would get easier riddles than a student in a high year as they had less knowledge, Penny knew that it was the same in Gryffindor although that was to prove that the prefects knew what they were doing, in Hufflepuff it was the second year's who actually led the first years with the sixth year prefects only watching while in Slytherin it was the seventh years who led the students.

Before Penelope had completed the riddle Harry stuck his hand up and after receiving a nod from the male prefect he said "A spider web"

The bronze eagle looked at him for several moments before bowing at him and moved to allow the common room door to open, around Harry the other first years were whispering to each other discussing how smart he was, Harry marched through the door leaving them behind, Harry had spent much of his childhood looking and watching the spiders in his cupboard, he sometimes wished he was one of them so he related to the last line of the riddle 'In open hid where none could find, except the dead and gone.' Even at Hogwarts nobody seemed to see Harry, only their fabled boy-who-lived, he was in a sense hidden were none could find.

So caught up in his thoughts he almost missed what Penelope said "Curfew is at 8pm for first and second years, breakfast served from 6am till 10 am, the dormitories are up the stairs on the first landing, boys on the right and girls left, inside the dormitories there are private study rooms, you will notice the rooms do contain beds, this is because students often fell asleep within the rooms when studying late into the night and Professor Flitwick, our head of year, thought it was best to have beds there if anyone needs it, there are no punishment for using the bed but we strongly advise you do not make a habit out of it."

The male prefect stepped forward then and said "You will learn of the rules from Professor Flitwick tomorrow morning, he will expect you to be up and ready to go by 8am so off to bed you lot"

* * *

Harry found the dormitory to be fairly large and open, there was a large empty bookshelf on the wall and a smaller bookshelf beside every bed, Harry expected there to be lots of desks and paper but the only furniture was a dark blue couch near the large bookshelf, the beds where in a line on one side of the room, a bookshelf on the left of the bed with a wardrobe on the right side, the side of one wardrobe. On the opposite side of the room were doors lined so that you could go straight from one bed to the matching door, Harry opened a door experimentally and looked inside, it was a small room compared to the dormitory but about the same size as his own room at the Dursleys, it had another empty bookshelf, a large desk with a neat stack of parchment to the side of it, a wooden chair for the desk, counters along one wall, a small blue plush armchair and a small bed.

Looking at the bed Harry felt like he would be using it a lot, having grown up almost entirely alone he was not very confident when talking to others his age unless it was a topic he knew about, talking to Hermione about magic felt natural but trying to talk to Ron was extremely awkward for him. The study room felt familiar to him and safe, the Dursleys left him alone in his room and as such he spent as much time there as possible, it became his safe haven from them and that idea of safety crept into his mind now, here he would be safe from the outside world and their expectations. He forced himself to shut the door and return to the dormitory bed, if he shut himself in that room on his first night he would never be able to connect with the other first years which he knew would only make his matter far worse, as such he carefully removed his clothes from his trunk into his wardrobe, before he had left for Hogwarts Petunia had taken him shopping for some muggle clothes "Can't have you looking scruffy when you aren't in uniform, they may send you home."

Once he had put everything away he looked around the dormitory and noted that most of the other first years had also finished and were looking at him, he raised an eyebrow at them and they turned away.

None of the others made to talk so Harry got into bed and started reading a defense against the dark arts book, first years did not do defense as the ministry thought that eleven year olds shouldn't have to see the darkness of the world, eventually Harry's dorm mates went to sleep too, unnoticed by all Harry held back tears, all he wanted was a friend yet it seemed he was destined to be alone, the one person he liked was in a completely different part of the school and he was alone.

* * *

_Another chapter, originally I was going to make this one longer but I have been quite busy this week so you guys get two small chapters today and next week *yay*_

_If you are interested in another Ravenclaw Harry story I suggest "For the love of magic" a truly brilliant story, gets very mature so be warned._


	9. Night in the castle

Harry watched the woman stand over him, he found he couldn't move and was forced to watch as a green light enveloped her as she dropped to the ground lifelessly, alongside the light were the first words he could remember "Avada Kedavra!"

He awoke with a start, drenched in sweat, he looked at the watch he had been given when he had gotten his letter as he had persuaded Vernon that he might need a watch to be able to get to class on time, according to his watch it was only two in the morning, he thought about going back to sleep but fear of the dream and being rather hungry led him out of the dormitory down to the common room in search of some food, finding none he decided to see if the great hall had any food, knowing it was against the rules to be in the corridors during curfew he knew he couldn't just waltz into the hall, that was how he found himself sneaking from shadow to shadow and using his magic to keep himself quiet, he had plenty of practise for this as at the Dursleys he often had to sneak out at night for food.

Thankfully despite Hogwarts being considerably larger than the Dursleys there were plenty of statues and pedestals to hide behind if he heard anyone coming however his caution seemed unneeded as he encountered not a single person on his quest to find the great hall, the issue lay in the fact he had no idea where to find the hall, he wandered the passageways hoping to stumble across somewhere he recognised but he couldn't help feeling he was going in the wrong direction.

He eventually came across a darkened corridor, were the previous corridors had lit torches and large windows the torches had been removed and the windows had large drapes blocking out the moonlight, he was about to continue down the corridor when a voice called out to him

"Not lost are you Harry?" Turning Harry saw Professor Dumbledore standing behind him, eyes twinkling kindly

"Err, yes sir, I was looking for the great hall" he hung his head expecting to be punished but Dumbledore only chuckled  
"I assumed you were looking for this corridor, your father and his friends tried to explore the forbidden forest on their first night, not following in his footsteps are you my boy?" He smiled as he said this to show Harry he was not in trouble, he had his concerns when he visited his home so was quite pleased to see the child try to rebel.

"No sir, I was just hungry, why would I be looking for this corridor sir?" Albus sensed the boy was being honest with him and realised he may have taken too many assumptions "Ah, well in that case I will show you where the kitchens are, the house elves are always eager to cook, as to why you might have wanted to find this corridor, it is located on the third floor" He waited to see the boy realise where he was but was met with only a confused look "It is the third floor corridor Harry, the one that is forbidden, I did mention it in my speech"

"Oh, sorry sir, I wasn't really paying attention, I was a bit distracted"  
"No worries my boy… I think it maybe a good idea for you to see why it is forbidden, I suspect you may be naturally curious if you are anything like your parents and I would prefer you to see it now while I am here to look after you rather than you to go looking on your own and get hurt."

He led Harry down the corridor to the last door and after pressing his fingers to the lock smoothly opened the doors, inside was a sleeping three headed dog, it was huge and Harry could barely take it all in before it started to wake up, Dumbledore quickly shut the door and once more pressed his fingers to the lock, just then something, Harry assumed the dog, slammed into the door and dust fell from the ceiling, Harry jumped back in panic fearing the dog was about to break loose but Dumbledore placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

"No need to be scared my boy, Fluffy is trained to not leave that room, and even if it were to escape the end of the corridor is charmed to kill Fluffy as a last resort. So long as nobody wanders into the corridor my students safety will not be impared, as headmaster of this school it is my duty to ensure no student may come to any undue harm" He spoke so firmly Harry couldn't help feeling safe.

He was led down to the entrance hall, but rather than go into the hall he was led down a staircase he hadn't noticed the day before and brought before a painting of a bowl of fruit, Dumbledore then tickled the pear and the entire painting swung forward revealing a small passageway behind it.

"These are the kitchens my boy, we have a charm of around a hundred house elves at last count, a charm being the proper name of a group of house elves over three, here the food is made and placed on those tables, they are exactly below the house tables above and when I give the signal the food is swapped from down here to up there."  
He let Harry take in his surroundings and subtly ordered the house elves to prepare a small platter of food for himself and the boy, when he felt enough time had passed he continued his talk.

"The tables are a brilliant piece of magic, as you will find out in transfiguration, or perhaps already know, it is easier to move one object from one location to another location if the two locations have a pre-existing connection, it is my own personal theory that magic will piggyback off that connection to make the transition easier, in this case the tables are in the same physical locations, just different levels and each table above was crafted from the same tree as the ones below, before Hogwarts was here the forbidden forest covered most of the land and almost exactly at this point there stood about a dozen giant trees, four of those trees each made two tables and benches to go alongside them, so the tables share a location and a point of origin, could you find another link?"

Harry looked at the tables and tried to remember the tables above, he couldn't identify any other link so went with the obvious "The purpose sir?"

"Could you expand upon that Harry?"

"Well obviously both are tables so it would be expected that there be food on them, I would imagine if the tables themselves are magic then they would _want_ food to be on them so it would be a case of pointing the table above at the one below and telling it to take food from it, the students above would also be wanting food which would help magic and the house elves would want the food to go up to the students if they like cooking for the students, that way you have a push factor down here with two pull factors above as well as the other two links you mentioned I would imagine it would require little actual magic."

"Well done, I must admit I hadn't even considered the idea that the wants of the students and elves would have any sway but you are completely correct, magic always works best when the users truly wants it to happen, the link I was going for was actually the house crests located at the ends of each table, that is where the magic of the table is actually stored as wood while good for transfering magic is bad at holding it, look around Hogwarts and you will find that anything magical is almost always made of stone or metal, the moving staircases for example are stone with metal bracing."

"What would happen if you ran a beam of wood from the top table to down here sir? I would suspect that would add a physical link meaning even less magic would be required, especially with wood being good at conducting magic like you said."  
"Ahh but that would affect the food itself, while in transit the food takes on some of what it goes through, which is why the kitchens have such a high roof, in the early days of Hogwarts it was said there was another room between the kitchens and the great hall but the founders realised the amount of stone the food passed through along with whatever may have been in the room resulted in the food often being poor quality or worse poisonous so the founders removed the room and made the kitchens taller, there is also charms in place above us to keep the air completely sanitary, by adding a wooden connection you would have to ensure every bit of wood between here and the hall is completely sanitary and safe, however it is a very good idea and if we were transporting something non edible, office supplies for example, it would be extremely useful, if you find yourself in need of a project I would suggest looking into it, just inform me or another teacher before you experiment so we can ensure you are safe."

Harry nodded happily, he had impressed Dumbledore, which from what he had heard was no small feat, he tucked into the food the elves provided and eventually felt full enough that he could wait till breakfast which was only a few hours away, as Dumbledore led Harry back to his common room he said "Now it is against school rules to be out after hours but as your intent was justified I will let you off with a small warning, if you are caught after hours again you will receive detention, if you are in need of food during the night simply ask aloud for it and the elves will deliver you a snack without needing to leave your common room, now any questions before I let you go back into the world of dreams?"  
"Yes sir, how did you know where I was?"

"Ah, well as I said earlier, it is my duty to ensure my students are safe, as such after curfew the school informs me whenever a student, especially a first year, leaves their common room, I tell you this in an act of trust so I will be most disappointed if you tell anyone this but as the students grow older their connection to the school loosens but generally I am alerted whenever they leave, after I was alerted you left it was a simple matter of getting here then following you, I must say you have stealth magic down very well, your disillusion charm may even have fooled a sixth or seventh year, however and forgive me for being vain, but I am no sixth or seventh year and as such I was not fooled, on top of that you may want to think about the magic you leave behind, I could have followed you even without seeing you by the magical scent you left from the various charms you cast, charms that are normally taught after fifth year so you have my respect for that."

Seeing that Harry had no more questions he touched the common room door and willed a small amount of magic into it, once it recognised his as the headmaster the door opened without asking a riddle or requiring a student inside to open it, he smiled then walked away, he then paused and said, "Oh, also don't feel like you need to keep Fluffy a big secret, I find there is nothing like some good gossip to make friends, good night, Harry"

* * *

_Smaller chapter, only 2000 words… going to have been home from holiday this time next week so more time to write._

_A Lot more theoretical discussions in this one, this will be most of first and second year as while I have Harry about as capable as an average third or fourth year he isn't as knowledgeable as said third or fourth year so to me while Harry is smart enough to think about and theorise advanced magic he can't really do it straight away, for example he couldn't cast a patronus in first year, maybe second, in cannon Harry is more powerful than average anyway as he could cast a full patronus powerful enough to stop like 100 dementors in his third year despite it being a NEWT level spell._

_Likewise I don't see Dumbledore as !greatergood or anything in this story, in my mind he is an old man who hasn't really had anyone close to him in intellect to talk to for a very long time (More on that in future chapters) however despite that he still cares for the children under his care, for those confused Dumbledore showed Harry Fluffy cause he still felt Harry may be a troublemaker like James and figured if he didn't show Harry then he would come back another time and get hurt, likewise he locked and unlocked the door silently and wandlessly to try and prevent Harry copying him, a panicky first year (Hermione in the books) wouldn't question trying a first year spell on a door, a troublemaker trying to break in would think it requires more power and since Dumbledore did it that way it would look complicated._

_Phew that was a long note._


	10. Cauldrons and needles

Harry managed to avoid any more unpleasant dreams after his night time wandering and when he was woken by his roommates getting ready for breakfast he felt well rested, he dressed in his study room and joined the other first years in the common room where Penelope and the other male prefect led them down to the great hall, once sat down he found made sure he was sat next to Penelope again as he still had questions about Hogwarts, as they talked Professor Flitwick passed along the time tables, he saw he had potions and transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs, he was quite pleased to have those two first as he had been unable to practice potions at the Dursley's and was looking forward to brewing an actual potion, so when Penelope leaned over to look at his timetable and said "Double potions first thing? Bad luck, Professor Snape hates everyone not in his own house, he's the one sat up there, next to Professor Quirrel." Harry wondered how bad Professor Snape could be if even a prefect like Penelope didn't like him.

After Breakfast was over Harry followed his roommates back up to the dormitory to pick up the needed supplies, he realised the cauldron was difficult to carry due to its weight and size, he willed his magic to make the cauldron lighter and put his supplies inside of it, then it was a simple matter of picking it up and going to the dungeons. Before he could leave the common room one of his roommates stepped up to him and said "Erm, Harry… Could you possibly do the same for my cauldron please."  
Harry looked down and saw that the boy could barely lift his cauldron off the ground so willed his magic to make that cauldron lighter as well, as the magic left him he felt his own cauldron get slightly heavier and recognised he was almost at his limit and quickly left the common room before another student could ask for his help.

The boy he had helped rushed after him and when he caught up said "Thank you for helping, I'm a bit surprised that these cauldrons aren't made lighter anyway before you buy them, but that's wizards for you I guess, I'm Justin Finch Fletchly by the way"

Harry slowed to allow the boy to walk with him as it seemed nobody else was following him

"It's no problem, just don't ask me to make anything else lighter or I fear both our cauldrons will get heavier, I'm guessing you weren't raised in the wizarding world then?"  
Justin smiled at being able to get him to talk and they spent the next few minutes talking about the muggle world, it was only once they reached the dungeons that Harry realised he didn't know where he was meant to be going, he turned to Justin and asked if he knew

"How would I know? I was following you as I thought you knew!"

Eventually they managed to find the correct door and walked in right as the man Penelope had identified as Professor Snape that morning started the register, he turned to them and snapped "names"

"Justin Finch Fletchly Sir"

"Harry Potter Sir"

"Ahh, Mr Potter, our newest celebrity" he drawled "Too important to turn up to class on time are you?"

"No sir, we got lost and-"

"Silence! I don't know what special treatment you are used to Mr Potter but you will get none from me, sit down." He turned back to the register then looked back up and said "Oh and that will be 20 points from Ravenclaw"

Once he had finished the register he got up and looked over everyone's equipment, when he got to Harry and Justin's cauldrons he stopped and waved his wand over their cauldrons

"Did you use magic on these cauldrons Mr Potter?"

"Yes sir? They were heavy and we couldn't lift them"

"Perhaps you should have gotten lighter cauldrons then? These cauldrons are useless now as your magic will soak into the potion and make is useless, I must say it is quite an achievement to have failed a potion before even arriving in the lesson, I may make a plague for you, would you like that Mr Potter?"

"No sir, sorry sir"

"You may as well make the potion with the rest of the class, it will act as proof as to why you do not use magic on the cauldrons"

When Snape moved away Harry concentrated on his magic within the two cauldrons and drew his magic out of them, the table groaned under strain presented to it but held firm, Harry turned to Justin and whispered "I've removed the magic from our cauldrons, hopefully it won't affect the potion now"

Justin turned out to be a good partner and when Professor Snape told everyone to finish and bottle up their potions Harry felt confident in the quality of their potion, once handed in Snape then called out "Gather round, we will now see how poor Potter's potion ended up, if it was brewed correctly with no outside interference then it would extinguish the match, however as it had outside interference it will instead catch fire"

He waved his hand and summoned a large matchstick from thin air, Harry could feel magic responding to the Professors command and was reluctantly awed by such a casual display of power, Snape then gave the match a slight flick and the tip caught fire, he lowered it over the flask and once it entered the neck gave of a 'woof' sound and the flame went out, the class started to applaud before silenced at a glare from Snape, he said "Class dismissed, Potter stay behind"

Harry nervously waited until the last student left where Snape waved his wand and the door slammed shut "Was that your own work from your own cauldron Potter or did you cheat as I suspect? If you admit to cheating now I will be lenient, if you lie to me be sure I will find out and you will be punished heavily"

"No sir I didn't cheat, after you said my cauldron still had magic within I drew it out of the cauldron so that it couldn't contaminate the potion"

"You have such control over your magic you can move it to and from something as dense as a cauldron? I do not believe you, I admit being able to cast a lighting charm is impressive but not unheard of, a first year having better control over his magic than most seventh years? No, you have one more chance to say the truth Potter"

Harry started sweating he didn't want to lose his house anymore points and so said "What if I show you Professor?" Snape blinked at him which Harry took to mean yes and drew as much magic as he could and forced it into his cauldron back at his place across the classroom, his aim was to only make it lighter but due to his over eagerness he overpowered it so that the cauldron started floating upwards, he then pulled his magic out of the cauldron causing it to drop instantly and smash into the desk, Harry winced as he didn't think through what he was doing, luckily Snape was too busy reassessing his image of the boy to properly notice the damage done to his tables.

* * *

When Severus first saw the Potter boy he assumed he was just like James Potter, the boy gave of a similar air of confidence, it was a surprise to see him sorted into Ravenclaw but when he turned up late for his lesson Severus assumed that the boy didn't care for lessons the same as his father, that was proven in his mind when he felt traces of magic in the cauldron, then the boy went ahead and brewed a near perfect potion! He doubted even he could have made something so good when he was eleven, however Severus remembered that in his first potions lesson Horace Slughorn had proclaimed that Lily had made a perfect potion too… Perhaps he was wrong to judge the boy on the actions of his father when he seemed to take after Lily.

When Severus was eleven years old and being sorted the hat had seen the ambition and drive within Severus and sorted him into Slytherin where he learned how to fine tune his ambition and learn the subtle art of cunning, Severus saw an opportunity in the boy, a chance at undoing the damage he unintentionally inflicted upon Lily, at first he would wait and be patient, to ensure the boy was genuine, if he turned out more like Lily than James he would take him under his wing, he hated James, but here with Harry was everything he desired, something to remember Lily by, a way to fulfil his life debt to the Potter family and a way to get some small revenge against James, Severus felt that James had stolen Lily from him and now he had the chance to "steal" Harry.

Looking down at Harry he saw a part of himself looking back, if he had any complaint with training the boy he lost it the moment he made eye contact, knowing he would have the other first years anytime soon he said "Potter you may go" when the boy reached the door he changed his mind "One moment Mr Potter" He summoned a piece of scrap parchment and wrote a quick note to Minerva 'Held Potter back, excuse his lateness. - Severus' and handed it to the boy, when he took it he told Harry "If you could find a way to make a cauldron lighter without affecting the quality of the potion come to me, even if it's only an idea, people have been trying to make cauldrons lighter longer than even Professor Dumbledore has been doing potions, if you can get it to work… you would change everything, you may go."

* * *

Harry managed to find the transfiguration classroom on time by asking a ghost for direction, as she had the Ravenclaw emblem on her robes he felt safe asking her, when he got to the room he found Professor Mcgonagall taking register, he sat quietly and answered his name she glanced up at him over the register then continued, she then instructed them on safety precautions and then how she wanted them to change a matchstick into a needle, Harry thought he had avoided another teacher being annoyed at him for being late when she said "Mr Potter come up to my desk please"

After making sure everyone else was concentrating on their matchsticks she asked "Why were you late to my lesson Potter?"

"I was talking to Professor Snape, Professor. He gave me a note." He handed her the note which she quickly read before banishing it.

"Very well, you may sit down and get on with the lesson."

Once say down he looked at his matchstick, it would be a walk in the park for him to turn it into a needle, he had done far more than that at the Dursleys, he then remembered how both Professors Dumbledore and Snape had been able to pick up on his use of magic and figured he may as well use the lesson to try and mask his magic, he concentrated on what he wanted to happen and planned how it would change from a wooden matchstick to a metal needle, he then wondered how he would mask his magic, he assumed a good way would be to use as little magic as possible, as such he tried to push the barest amount of magic, the matchstick became a little more pointy at the end but didn't change fully to his disappointment, he then tried to pull his magic out of the matchstick and found he couldn't, surprised he concentrated on turning his "magic sight" back on, immediately a flood of colour filled his vision, he focused on just the matchstick and forced the other colours away, the matchstick glowed a pale red, looking around he saw every matchstick was the same red, looking at Mcgonagall she glowed the same red so he assumed she must have summoned the matchsticks, when a student had some success changing their matchstick their own magical colour coated the red, looking at his own matchstick despite the fact he had changed it he couldn't see his own green, excited he tried to change it again with a little more power this time, a tendril of green left his wand and embraced the matchstick before soaking into it, now there was a faint coating of green over the red but it was almost invisible so that the red still shone through, if anyone where to glance at it they might just assume it was a weird shade of red, in the real world Harry's matchstick was now a metal needle.

Unaware of his surrounds due to being lost in thought he missed Mcgonagall's look of shock at how he had managed to change it despite using less magic than anyone else in the room, as someone who has spent so much time around magic and people casting magic sensing ambient and active magic was basically an unwritten requirement to teaching, if she didn't know better she would say that the magic Harry had just cast would put him just over that of a squib, yet he had completely changed the matchstick to a perfect needle, it even looked sharp enough to go through leather, Hermione Granger was the only one to equal the feat of having a perfect needle but she had forgotten to make the tip sharp enough to actually function.

When Mcgonagall had watched the girl change her own matchstick she had been amazed at the level of control the girl had displayed, normally first years started by just throwing their magic at a problem until it just worked, it was later in their schooling that they learned true control, even some adult wizards used that brute force approach to magic, despite Hermione's own achievement Harry put Hermione to shame with his control that could have rivaled Minerva's own level of control, she started to suspect why Severus had held Harry back if he had shown the same level of skill in his own lesson.

Making a mental note to bring up Potter in the staff meeting after dinner she awarded him 15 house points and went back to helping the rest of the class, she watched him as he reverted the needle back into a perfect match stick and then back into a needle, each and every time was perfectly formed but he was using less magic until she couldn't even tell he was using magic, it was like he just looked at the matchstick and it bent to his will of its own accord, she was quite awed as she doubted she could have every attempted that feat when she was in school, she wondered just how strong the boy was currently and what he could do after he finished his schooling, she dismissed the class and once everyone had left she locked her door and summoned her bottle of scotch she kept hidden under her desk, she considered getting a glass but then just drank it from the bottle, she had a lot to think about and had a whole free period to mull over the mystery that is Harry James Potter.

* * *

_If anyone wants a good song suggestion I suggest Lost in the Rhythm by Jamie Berry, listened to it a lot writing this and the next chapter._

_Something fun I noticed in the document editor, some spellings that are perfectly accepted in google docs are wrong according to Fanfiction's spell checker, such as "Hermione" wanting to become "Thermionic", as Hermione is an actual name I wonder why the site would want to change somebodies name to a science 'thing'..._

_I realised after sometime after this chapter went live that Justin was a Hufflepuff, I talk about it more in the next chapters notes but for now, yes I am aware he isn't in his cannon house._


	11. A Charming Meeting

After Harry had finished lunch he entered the library as he had the rest of the day free and he wanted to research more advanced magic, he recognised Hermione sat in the corner, deciding he could do with the company he sat down, when she failed to look up he coughed and said "Hermione?" she jumped in shock then looked up at him and smiled

"Hello Harry, I didn't expect to see you here"

"I came to research some more magic, also I am a Ravenclaw, I should be the one asking what you are doing here" he said with a grin, enjoying being able to spend time with someone who could talk to him normally without being affected by his unwanted fame

"I'm doing my homework" she replied, indicating the roll of parchment and open book of potions

"You guys got homework? We didn't"

"Professor Snape asked Ron Weasley questions at the beginning of class and when he couldn't answer he gave it to us as homework"

Harry glanced at her work and said "While aconite is used for some poisons its most common usage is actually in the Wolfsbane potion, in medieval times aconite was combined with meat to kill wild wolves, which is why another name for aconite is Wolfsbane, which the potion is named after, it is suspected the Wolfsbane potion uses aconite to either 'kill' or defeat the inner wolf of a werewolf leaving the human mind in control of the body."

Hermione looked at him agape "How did you know that? I knew Wolfsbane and monkshood were another name for aconite but I didn't even know about the Wolfsbane _potion_, how did you know that!"

"Potions was one of the few arts of magic I couldn't practice at the Dursleys so I read up on it as much as I could, I was interested in the fact that in the muggle world aconite had practical uses in medicine while it was used in poisons in the magical world, so I looked up ways that aconite was used to benefit and stumbled across the Wolfsbane potion"

"What about adding powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"  
"That depends on the other ingredients, mixing the two together by themselves would result in a dough like mixture that is incredibly deadly, it was often mixed with regular dough and baked into bread, it was impossible to detect once baked but once consumed the victim would die within an hour, this assassination method was quickly phased out however for a bezoar could absorb the poison, this was why goats were so popular during this time period as a bezoar a can cure most poisons.

"When you combine the two with dittany the poisonous values of the two and healing values of dittany cancel each other out resulting in the potion draught of living death which leaves the drinker appearing dead until the potion wears off were they will reawaken perfectly fine, often used in medical procedures as the heartbeat drops to one beat a minute when spells like the stasis charm would be ineffective, the draught of living death is one of the few 'poisons' unaffected by a bezoar as for it to work the poison needs to be circulating the body."  
Harry noted that as he was talking Hermione was frantically writing down all he was saying, feeling more self conscious he continued

"The final major use of the two is when unicorn blood, unicorns are seen as creatures of life, while the other two are ingredients of death, which is why the two previous uses are death and near death, with unicorn blood it makes a potion commonly called Apollos Blessing, it is one of the strongest health potions known and if consumed by a vampire of similar 'undead' magical creature it will make them fully mortal, however the unicorn blood must be freely given, if it is taken unwillingly then rather than reverse the effects of wormwood which is the part that is deadly, the unicorn blood will enhance the properties, a true potion of Apollos Blessing is purest white with gold streaks, the corrupted version is pitch black with silver streaks and will kill anyone the moment the potion is digested. Luckily the potion is distinct in both cases and impossible to mask, however due to how fast acting it is a bezoar has no effect as in almost every case the victim is dead before a bezoar can even be thought of."

Unknown to the pair Severus Snape was lurking in the restricted section behind them invisible, he overheard Harry explaining the subtle arts of potions, he now knew if the boy was still so well mannered next year he would start tutoring him, Severus had seven years to watch the boy, there was no rush and he wanted to have all the facts before he started anything drastic.

* * *

Harry awoke early the next day and wanted to practice his own magic before breakfast, he dressed quietly and wandered down the empty corridor, once he had gotten far enough away from the common room he opened the first door he found and poked his head inside, it was clearly an abandoned classroom with desks lining the far wall and a small layer of dust settling on everything, he quickly looked at the state of the door and walls and felt they were suitably strong and stepped inside and shut the door behind him, with the desks out of the way he had more than enough space to practice, eventually he would try and get a spare cauldron so that he could brew his own potions without requiring his school cauldron.

As Harry planned what to do he wandered the room kicking up dust behind him, he then sneezed and blew up even more dust and realised his first step would have to be to remove the dust, deciding to experiment he willed his magic out of him and into the air particles around him, he felt the magic seeping out of him and felt incredibly weak despite only having woken up a few minutes ago, however his effort was not in vain as the air around him glitter and seemed to shine, glad of his success he willed the air to swirl around the room, the air started to move, slowly at first but gradually picking up momentum until there was a small tornado swirling around Harry, the dust that had laid dormant for perhaps decades began being pulled towards the tornado as it gained in power, eventually the tornado was clearly visible even without the magical shine from the power and speed of the air Harry controlled, realising he needed to actually remove the dust not just move it Harry willed the air to slip off from the circular route around the room and directed it to one of the large windows behind the desks.

The dust tornado slowly unraveled as a stream of air and dust flew towards the window, due to the joy of this new discovery Harry forgot to actually open the window, as the air was moving at a considerable speed and had such a dense amount of dust within it when it slammed into the glass it sheared straight through and as the stream of air increased the hole expanded, by the time all the dust had gone the window had a hole big enough for Harry to crawl through, embarrassed at his lack of fore-thought he hastily repaired the window with a swish of his wand and a muttered "repairo", looking around the now clean room however Harry couldn't help but be happy at the result and with glee realised he now had an area he could practice magic as much as he liked without anyone coming in and complaining about how noisy he was or any damage he accidentally caused, with that he began to practice for what was left of his morning.

* * *

The only lesson Harry had that day was charms taught by professor Flitwick, this was one of the few lessons shared with the Gryffindors, choosing a seat near the front next to Hermione, Harry waited for the rest of the class to turn up, once they did Flitwick called out the register and once he had finished he stood before the class

"Charms is one of the most varied magic you will learn here at Hogwarts, sometimes a charm will seem to be a curse or a transfiguration, as such for today's lesson you will be learning the difference between the branches of magic."

He swished his wand and at a bookcase and a book flew towards him "Now, that was a charm, for now all you need to know is that a charm is a predictable, reliable cause and effect, in this case the summoning charm directed at that book, I can cast that charm as many times as I like and the effect will always be that the object I am summoning will be pulled towards me"

He then waved his wand up and the book turned into a pig "That was a transfiguration, to transfigure something is unpredictable but reliable action or inaction, for example I just transfigured the book into the pig, but should I ask Professor Mcgonagall to do the same, she too would end up with a pig, does anyone know why I called it unpredictable if two or more people can end up with the same result?"

Seeing that nobody else had an answer, not even Hermione who looked confused, Harry shyly raised his hand "Yes Mr Potter"

"Well while the result of the transfiguration would be the same for how the book goes from a static object to a living creature it would be unique to every witch and wizard, I would suspect that in this case the two pigs would also have differences while a charm to turn a book into a pig would mean that each pig would be identical?"

"Ten points to Ravenclaw Mr Potter, yes as he so rightly said how a witch or wizard does transfiguration at the very base layer it is unique to said witch or wizard, transfiguration is considered one of the hardest subjects for that very reason, which is why I am glad I chose to teach charms instead!"

As the class chuckled at that as Flitwick then turned to the pig and jabbed his wand straight at it, a bolt of red light flew from his wand and stuck the pig which keeled over onto its side asleep.

"Now finally that was a curse, in later years you will learn there are many subcategories of curses but the majority of curses are predictable but unreliable, in this case I cast a stunning curse and if I were to get another professor to case the curse it would act the same, the unreliability comes from what you would be trying to curse, for example my stunner on the pig knocked it unconscious, if I were to cast a stunner at Professor Dumbledore he would most likely barely feel it, can anyone tell me why?... yes Mr Potter"

"Is it to do with the magical power of who or what you are attacking? So obviously a pig has little to no magic, that pig may even have been more resistant than a normal pig as it is innately magical due to being transfigured, however Professor Dumbledore is meant to be the strongest wizard in Britain and so quite a bit more powerful than a pig, the curse is predictable because so long as it was cast properly it would have the intent to knock somebody unconscious, however unreliable because it would act differently to different targets. I also suspect even a curse a witch or wizard made up during a battle would still be technically predictable as although it would be new to their opponent and as such 'unreliable' the caster could cast the curse again with the same affect."

"Exactly, take ten points to Ravenclaw for the answer and another five for a sound hypothesis. As Mr Potter eluded to, most theorists agree that magic is made up of three factors, can anyone name them? Miss Granger"

Harry raised his hand but this time so did Hermione, she knew little about the theoretical side of magic for first year books didn't go into detail for each teacher often taught magical theory differently, however she had an extremely accurate memory and remembered Harry had told her the answer to this question on the train.

"Magic requires three major factors; imagination, planning and power. You first have to imagine what you want to achieve, for example send the pig to sleep, then you have to plan every detail on how to achieve this, then finally you need enough magical power to make them do what you want." She looked at Harry expecting him to be upset for using his own theory but he smiled and nodded at her.

"Excellent, ten points to Gryffindor for quite advanced magical theory. I would change your response Miss Granger to magic requires Intent, Focus and Force for the 'official' names, as Miss Granger explained you have to Intend on what you want to happen, Focus on how you want that to happen then finally Force your magic into doing what you want. Accidental magic happens when at least one of the three are absent, here at Hogwarts you will learn how to focus you magic, intent and force of magic is up to the user, you will find that the three compliment each other, say you struggle with force, by spending more on focusing or intending you magic you will need to force it less, likewise if you struggle with the focus you could increase intent and force, few magicals ever learn to master all three, Professor Dumbledore being such an individual."

The rest of the lesson was Professor Flitwick doing a charm, transfiguration or curse and making the class vote on which it was, it became obvious to all that Harry got every single time, a notable one was when Flitwick had waved his wand at the pig and turned its skin bright blue, almost all of the class voted curse except for Harry, Hermione and Ron Weasley who had started to just vote for whatever Harry voted for.

"Why is it a transfiguration instead of a curse Mr Potter?" Flitwick had asked, eyes twinkling

"Well to start with I ruled out it being a charm as it is affecting a living creature and charms only work on inanimate objects, I also ruled out it being a curse for every single curse you have shown previously had magic leave your wand and strike your target, here you controlled the magic of the creature against it, another reason I ruled out a curse was so far every curse wand movement has ended in a jabbing motion while this was just a wave of your wand, like every transfiguration, for argument's sake that also rules out a charm as they have ended up in a swish of the wand." What Harry kept quiet about was the third reason, he had done that very transfiguration that morning in his new training room and knew what it 'felt' like.

"Very good Mr Potter, yes it was indeed a transfiguration, five points to everyone who got it correct, another ten to Mr Potter for a correct answer, I wonder Mr Potter, what would happen if I had attempted that transfiguration on another wizard?"

"The wizard would have to fight off or over power the magic, they might also be able to hijack the transfiguration to their own need, for example rather than turning their skin blue they could hijack it and turn it orange"

"Take another ten points, it is with cases like this where the line between the three major magic types blurs, the main difference for this is how it was cast, in a duel I could transfigure my opponents robes into lead while sending a burdening curse at them, they could fight off the transfiguration but would most likely be hit by the curse, or deflect the curse but let the transfiguration take affect, for this reason professional dueler's and Auror's keep a constant magical aura that prevents that sort of tactic, the more powerful the witch or wizard the stronger or larger the aura, during a duel I prefer a large but weak aura, a witch or wizard cannot transfigure anything inside that aura however they could over power that aura, by keeping my aura weak I raise the chances of it being overpowered but prevent the chance that any transfiguration would take place near me, it also allows me to lose less magic in maintaining the aura meaning I can concentrate more on my opponent, an Auror would most likely have a small but strong aura as they would need the stronger protection at the cost of allowing transfiguration near them."

Eventually the bell rang and as people packed up Flitwick called out "For homework you are to write an essay, that is at least six foot long, on the key differences between charms, transfiguration and curses, with examples! Mr Potter could you stay behind for a quick word"

"Professor?" Harry asked once everyone had gone

"Don't worry, your not in trouble, indeed I was extremely impressed with your answers, I have never had a first year answer as accurately as yourself! Now, Severus, or Professor Snape to you, told me you were already casting lightweight charms on your cauldron? He said he was pleasantly surprised by the level of aptitude you had displayed in you magic and given your answers in lesson I am inclined to believe him! Professor Dumbledore also mentioned to me after the opening feast that when he went to visit you had displayed a level of magic beyond that of a first year, I was wondering if you would mind showing me just what you are capable of so that I and the other teachers can properly test you? This will remain strictly confidential you understand, nobody needs to know if you don't want them too"

Harry nodded and held out his hand to the pig that Flitwick had used throughout the lesson, he forced his magic onto it and forced Professor Flitwick's magic off, normally even someone with an above average level of knowledge and power would not be able to over power a teachers magic however Flitwick often used the least power needed from his experience dueling where wasting magic could result in a loss, as well as being low powered the transfiguration had happened an hour ago and had already fought off numerous low powered curses so when Harry's magic surged on top of it and fought for control Flitwick's magic gave in fairly quickly, once in control Harry then changed the pig into a life size marble statue of Flitwick.

When Harry had given Dumbledore the mithril statue of his head Harry felt the detail was inadequate for such a creation so spent a long time after learning how to make statues higher detailed, it paid off now as Flitwick looked at the statue which was a mirror image to himself, the fact it was made from marble, made from a pig which was originally a book and was forced out of his own magical control stunned the man, apart from the level of detail within the statue he theorised he could replicate the feat but it would have taken time, Harry had done the whole process in under five minutes, the fact the boy was still standing and apart from sweating heavily looked perfectly fine also stunned Flitwick, he cast a diagnostic spell on the statue and realised that there was enough magic within the statue that it would last about a week before needing to be replenished, while that may sound like a short amount of time for the level of detail, density and being made of marble which was a hard substance to use due to its resistance to magic, a week was an exceptionally long time for it to stand.

Flitwick rapped his knuckles on the statue and heard the sound reverberate inside, revealing that the statue was hollow, Flitwick turned to Harry and said "I am extremely impressed Mr Potter, for exceptional use of magic take 50 points to Ravenclaw, I see now that I may have underestimated your power level, clearly you are more powerful than your peers, would you like me to look into moving you up a year? Or perhaps two…"

"If it's okay professor, I would like to stay in my current year, I taught myself a lot of what I know and I fear if I jumped years I would miss something, likewise I normally focused on what I could do, I only recently started wondering how I do it so the theory side of magic is quite fascinating to me, which I would miss by skipping a year"

"Oh that's fine with me, just let me know if you do find your classes too basic as I will arrange additional work either during or after lessons should you require more, for instance this statue alone proves you are far beyond turning a matchstick into a needle."

"I think I would quite like that additional work later in the year professor and I've been trying to get greater control of my magic for example in yesterday's lesson I was seeing how little magic it would take to change a match into a needle."

"Of course! Minerva mentioned she was surprised at how little magic you had used compared to your peers… well you have given me a lot to think on Mr Potter, you may leave, oh may I keep the statue, for experimentation purposes only of course."

"Feel free" Harry said before leaving, alone in his classroom Filius waved his wand over the statue in complicated patterns, he made his magic settle over Harry's so that his was identical and then forced Harry's magic out, as the statue was originally his transfiguration Harry's magic gave way easily and Filius' replaced it, he also raised it up a foot and added a plinth underneath, he then cut a neat line along the back of the statue and enchanted it to act as a door, for a long time now he had wanted something just like this but had never gotten round to it, now that he had exactly what he was looking for he gleefully brought it back to his office.

* * *

_So I recently realised that Justin Finch-Fletchley is actually a Hufflepuff rather than Ravenclaw, I think as I remember Justin wearing blue in the Chamber of Secrets movie and he said he was down for Eton, which upon a quick google reveals is "one of the most prestigious schools in the world" so I just fell into "Ravenclaw smart, Hufflepuff dumb" while Justin could be either as he would have to have worked hard to get considered, despite that Justin will remain a Ravenclaw is this, consider it the first non-Harry related change._

_On another change you will most likely notice that the way I describe the magic differs to cannon, this is fairly deliberate as I feel like the magic of Harry Potter is lacking… like you have this world were you can wave your wand and do whatever you want yet in cannon there are like five commonly used "useful" spells then a bunch of other spells that are fairly pointless… that is one of the reasons 'For the love of magic' is one of my favourite fanfictions as the entire fanfic is expanding on magic._

_Also in case it wasn't entirely clear Harry was able to transfigure the statue for a few reasons 1. He has been doing mostly transfiguration magic since he discovered magic, 2. He has been practising how to make lifelike statues since Dumbledore visited so he had practise magic statues easily, 3. Harry didn't realise marble is considered hard to summon (Will be expanded upon properly in a chapter) and finally he has a higher magical store than an average first year, he is not more powerful than Flitwick but caught Flitwick by surprise, Flitwick thinks he wouldn't be able to copy it because he just doesn't have the level of detail needed to make it, he could transfigure something into the size of the statue made of marble but it wouldn't look like him, he has the power just not the eye for detail. _


	12. Ups and Downs

It had become commonplace to find Harry and Hermione together in the library, if one could see through disillusionment charms they would have also noticed Severus Snape often lurking nearby as well, he had taken to listening to the Potter boy, occasionally the child would say something that was wrong and Severus took pleasure in knowing that his nemesis' son wasn't all knowing, today was one such day for Severus.

"Does intent have anything to do with how a potion turns out Harry? Because you always say without intent spells do not work so do you have to know what you want your potion to do?"

"I would say no, from what I can tell potions are like charms in that they are 'reliable and predictable' if you mess up the incantation or wand movement in charms the charm comes out unpredictable and it looks to be the same with potions, just instead of an incantation and wand movement its ingredients and instructions, for instance if I make a health potion but intend for the potion to cause harm it would still heal the drinker so long as it was brewed correctly."

So when Harry sat down in potions the next day and saw on the board 'The intent of the brewer and affect upon the potion' he assumed Hermione must have asked Snape in her lesson which was the day before, he gave Professor Snape the same answer he gave Hermione and was shocked when Snape said "Incorrect Potter, the intent of the brewer has _everything_ to do with the potion, you will find any potion we brew in these first few years do not rely on intent as you and your peers do not possess enough control to not let your insufferable emotions take over during brewing. Say you were to brew a calming solution but were feeling angry, rather than calm the drinker it may very well enrage them, you will find this true in charms, herbology and eventually transfiguration if you ever get to transfiguration of objects into animals.

"The intent of the brewer if one of the reasons potions are always in such a strong demand despite the large number of potioneers, St Mungos have to ensure each and every potion they receive have been brewed to a professional standard and that the intent of the brewer was inline with the potion effect, there was a particularly nasty case a few years past were they failed to properly check the intent and rather than sooth a patient they had an irrational fear and died of shock, the reason was the brewer was fearful since she had fallen behind in potion deliveries."

Professor Snape had spent the lesson discussing the intent of potions and then had them prepare the ingredients so that they could start their potions immediately in the next lesson.

By now the other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had gotten used to Harry and Snape's verbal disputes during lessons and realised that so long as Snape focused on Harry he gave out extremely helpful tips, when Hufflepuff Ernie Macmillan overheard Ron Weasley loudly complain about Professor Snape not teaching them anything he snapped at the boy and said "If you paid attention in class you would learn, Professor Snape is a very good teacher, I wouldn't have a clue on how to brew a potion if it weren't for Professor Snape… and Harry too I guess"

Unfortunately for Ron his brother Percy had overheard this and upon hearing how Ron was failing in potions had marched him into the library and politely asked Harry if he could help is brother, despite Ron's reluctance to learn he found he enjoyed it when Harry was his teacher as he was too fearful of his power to be rude yet Harry was only ever polite to him and helped him understand what he was doing wrong in transfiguration, Ron felt he even understood some of how to prepare a potion now rather than just through everything into the cauldron and hope for the best, Snape had even commented on his work "Better than your usual rubbish Weasley, I'm impressed I didn't think that possible, I suspect if you were to hand this into an exam you may achieve a high T."

* * *

Ron was sat at Harry's table as he worked on his history of magic homework that was due for later that day, history was one of the few subjects Harry was terrible at as the boy invariably ended up making his book fly around his desk from boredom, once when Ron asked if he could learn to do that in one of his study sessions Harry had cast a hovering charm on Ron's book and then directed Ron on laying his magic on top of the book and applying slight forces upon it to move it, after a few lessons practise Ron could move his book fairly confidently, it annoyed him he couldn't make the book float without Harry's charm but he was happy enough racing Harry's book around a race track they had drawn, he couldn't get his book to go as fast as Harry so Ron found he could go round the corners better than Harry could so normally tried to get in front of Harry in a tight corner and then stop Harry from getting around him, due to the informal rules Harry couldn't raise or lower his book so had to try and out maneuver Ron or get a large enough lead early on to stop Ron blocking him.

Ron shook his head and looked back down at his homework, he could have owled Bill but wanted to do this by himself without relying on his brothers, Ron knew that he could have asked Hermione for help too but was too jealous of the girl to ask, he could forgive Harry for being better than him as he had grown up hearing the legends of the Boy-who-lived and Harry hadn't kept it a secret that he had been using magic since he was five, Hermione however was just an ordinary muggleborn and hadn't even known about magic a few months ago yet performed just under Harry in almost every class, sometimes even out performing him in subjects like history of magic or astronomy, aside from her magical brilliance there was another reason Ron was jealous, she was Harry's best friend and Harry went to her with his theories before Ron, of course Ron barely understood Harry's theories but the point still stood, Ron thought he should be Harry's best friend, Hermione was a girl after all and Ron's experience with girls so far in his life was to avoid them as much as possible.

He suspected that once they finished Hogwarts Harry would take on Hermione as his official apprentice as even at the age of eleven Ron felt Harry was challenging the professors in magical knowledge, he had even heard in the Gryffindor common room that Harry had sometimes been seen talking to Dumbledore as if he was an equal, if Ron was honest with himself, he wanted to be treated like an equal by Dumbledore but realised he would probably never be magically strong enough to warrant that attention from the great Albus Dumbledore.

Finally finishing his homework Ron leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief, he withdrew his wand and poked it at the parchment, with a little push of magic it rolled itself up, that was one of the first things Harry had taught him, it was basically useless but it had proved to Ron that he could do magic once he practiced it enough, he spent the rest of the time moving his book around the table, after a while Harry's book joined in and they started to race, Hermione looked on disapprovingly as she continued her homework, Harry managed to get in front of him and Ron knew that he would need something new to beat Harry, as he entered a corner he forced his book up and over Harry's, Ron raced his book away and Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise before making his own book faster to catch up with Ron.

The next morning when Ron came down from his dorm room he was thrilled to see a poster displaying the upcoming date for broom practice, upon arriving in the great hall he made a beeline for the Ravenclaw table where Harry and his friend Justin were discussing magical philosophy "You guys are such nerds" Ron complained as he sat down opposite them "Did you guys see the broom practice notice? Brilliant isn't it?"

"Oh yes, never been all that fond of heights myself, still imagine flying on a broom, jolly good fun I would imagine!" Justin replied excitedly, Ron glanced at him slightly annoyed as Ron was aiming his comment to Harry but quickly reminded himself that it was an unspoken rule with Harry's friends that if they insult each other Harry would leave them without a second thought, that rule had started when Ron had first started joining the group and Harry had left without a word when Ron was sarcastic to Hermione, since then he had been on his best behaviour as while he was friendly with his roommates they rarely spent much time together outside the common room.

Ron treasured being friends with Harry more than he would like to admit as the other students laughed at his jokes and comments but neither accepted and interacted with him like Harry had done, as such Ron kept reminding himself to accept Harry's friends, so rather than insult Justin, Ron nodded eagerly and turned to Harry saying "I've done some flying myself at home, nothing like it!"

"I haven't thought of flying much to be honest… I guess it would be cool" Harry offered, truthfully he had spared a thought to flying when he had seen the broomstick in Diagon Alley but not so much the actual feeling of flying but the charms or enchantments that powered the broom.

* * *

The day Ron had been waiting for all week had finally arrived, he and Harry had been practicing their book racing and Ron could now beat Harry most of the time as both could now move their books in all six directions, Ron only lost when Harry poured his magic into his book as it could get up to speed that Ron couldn't even hope to match, once during a particularly enthusiastic race Harry had gone too fast into a corner and his book had gone flying over the classroom and through Professor Binns, the ghost had not even noticed and Harry had sheepishly snuck behind the professor to reclaim his book, upon returning to his desk he saw a smug Ron move his book across the finishing line.

Ron was interrupted from his musings by Malfoy coming over to his table and stealing a glass orb from one of his roommates, Neville Longbottom. Ron had barely seen Malfoy since the train as Draco seemed scared of Harry and rarely came near Harry or his friends, Ron recognised the glass orb as a Remembrall which made sense as Neville always seemed to be forgetting something, he had once forgotten his wand and Snape had taken great delight in taking 10 points from Gryffindor for it despite Ron's complaint that in the beginning of the year, Snape had clearly told the class "there shall be no wand waving in this class"

Seeing that Neville wasn't going to defend himself Ron stood up and said "Shove off Malfoy, you are not welcome in Gryffindor!"

"And _you_ are not welcome in Hogwarts, you and your family are nothing but filthy blood traitors, no better than the mudbloods!"

Malfoy seemed to notice that everyone had gone silent but they weren't looking at him but the person behind him

"Do you want to say that again Malfoy?"

Ron had never seen Harry angry before, he always had a tight control over his emotions, now however everyone could see that Harry was enraged, Malfoy turned and as soon as he saw Harry he back away, or tried to as he was next to the table and when he stepped backwards he tripped and fell over scattering food and plates as he went. He stood quickly and smoothed his robes and said "This is between me, Longbottom and Weasley, Potter, there is no need for you to get involved"

"Ron is my friend and even if he wasn't you are a bully, if there is one thing I cannot stand it is bullies."

Malfoy raised his wand at Harry only for it to fly out of his hand into Harry's, what shocked Ron was that Harry had not uttered a spell and his wand was visibly still inside his pocket, Harry held Malfoy's wand by each end and gave it a slight bend, Malfoy paled but said nothing  
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't?" Harry said, glaring at Malfoy as he slowly bent his wand

"My father will make you pay!" Malfoy yelled in panic

"I don't even know who your father is, why should I care about him?"

"I'll leave Longbottom and Weasley alone! Just give me back my wand" Malfoy begged as his wand looked to be on the verge of snapping

"Say please" Harry had stopped bending the wand but had kept it stressed

"What?" Malfoy asked confused

"Say please or you lose your wand"

"Please!" Malfoy said desperately

"Pathetic, you think yourself a bully yet yield at the slightest resistance" Harry said as he through Malfoy's wand over his shoulder towards the Slytherin table, as Malfoy ran to pick up his wand Harry left the great hall, followed by Hermione, Ron and surprisingly Neville.

* * *

Albus watched all this from the staff table, he was about to intervene when Harry gave back the Malfoy heir's wand, Albus used the incident to see how Harry would act, he wished the best for the boy but his background was too similar to poor Tom's to trust in fate, however Tom would never have acted to stop a bully, Albus just needed to teach Harry to not go to such extremes as that was something he knew Tom had done to inspire fear within his followers when he was at school.

Many accomplished wizards learned to not rely upon their wands but for the average person they would go to great lengths to protect their wands, Albus suspected Tom had started his pursuit of wandless magic shortly after he started using peoples wands against them, during the last war one of his order members had managed to hit Tom with a disarming jinx, Tom had replied by jabbing his hand at the man and the killing curse had cut down another of Albus' order. Albus thought about that battle often, the killing curse was meant to be impossible to cast without a wand and it had come out too fast, the killing curse was regarded as one of the slowest spells, the more power fed into a spell the slower it became, Tom regularly ignored this fact as his killing curses came fast and unstoppable, this often made Albus wonder just what Tom had done to ensure he could cast such powerful spells so quickly.

* * *

Harry stepped up to his broomstick, his anger at Malfoy simmering just under the surface, his friends had wisely not spoken to him on the walk over, it had taken all his self control to not break Malfoy's wand, glancing down at the broom on the ground beside him he tried to work out what made it work, he turned on his magic sight… 'I really need to name this magical sight I have, it feels awkward calling it _magic sight_ even in my own head, maybe _Mage Sight_.' Harry thought, since arriving at Hogwarts Harry had been testing his mage sight so that he could control how quickly it took affect and recently how much of his mage sight took over his regular sight. By now he had enough control to focus on the broom and the ground around it but blocking out the giant sun of magic that was Hogwarts, the broom started glowing with an orange coppery colour, looking at some of the other brooms they all looked a similar colour, some of the more recent brooms were more yellow but looked similar, Harry wondered if that was the colour of broom magic or the brooms were made by people with similar magic.

Eventually everybody had turned up and Madam Hooch began her lecture on flying, when everyone started shouting "UP" Harry watched a tendril of magic leave the student and latch onto the broom, from that Harry concluded the word wasn't some activation trigger on the broom but an easy way from the students to call forth their intent, for the students whose magic didn't react where the ones most vocal about their reluctance to fly, Harry simply imagined his broom moving from the ground into his open hand, forcing some magic into the intent and his broom jumped from the ground into his hand, only Neville seemed to notice that Harry had called his broom wordlessly and without holding his hand above the broom.

When they were told to mount their brooms Harry started getting nervous, he wasn't too fond of heights, once when they were younger he and Dudley had a school trip to visit some cliffs, when the teachers hadn't been looking Dudley had pushed Harry towards one of the cliffs and Harry had almost fallen off, since then Harry tried to avoid high places as much as possible '_and now I'm being told to fly into the air… on a small wooden stick… a wooden stick with decaying enchantments… maybe I should sit this one out… although I guess Madam Hooch will be watching'_

When Neville shot up before Madam Hooch finished counting down she yelled at him to get down, Harry thought that was quite silly as she had just been about to tell them to fly up so what if Neville miss judged when to kick off from the ground, that was until Neville's broom started bucking underneath him, Harry instinctively reached out with his magic and pushed some of his magic into Neville's broom in an effort to try and stabilize it, the magic tried to resist him but Harry forced through, cutting out the old enchantments, the same enchantments that allowed the broom to rise.

Neville dropped towards the ground, his broom uselessly clutched in his fingers, Harry pushed his hand forward, imbuing his magic within the broom with the intent to rise, it was nothing like the broom enchantment but it should hopefully help Neville, there wasn't enough magic in the broom to cut out Neville's downward momentum but it did slow him so that when he hit the ground it left only a bruise compared to broken bones, Madam Hooch scolded the boy but as he was unhurt he got told to sit at the edge of the grounds.

The rest of the lesson was spent learning to fly, Harry did not particularly enjoy the experience and found he lacked the strength needed to properly control his broom and was fearful of controlling his broom with magic in case he broke the enchantments like he had done to Neville, if Harry had spent his childhood doing all the chores for the Dursleys Harry may have ended up with the required strength to control his broom, however Vernon and Petunia agreed that they preferred Petunia doing most of the house work and Harry stayed within his cupboard, not seeing the freak was far better than saving some work.

* * *

Unseen by anybody Draco saw something shiny near where Longbottom had fallen, he scooped down and picked up the Remembrall from that morning, he considered gloating about it but as Madam Hooch was nearby he didn't want to risk it, although he didn't like to admit it to himself he was also fearful of what Potter may do to him, he had seen the fury within his eyes and had never been as scared as when his wand was being tortured by Potter, as such he pocketed the ball and planned how to get revenge on both Potter and Weasley, he knew he could never take on Potter magically and Malfoy was not one to throw the first spell, luckily for him, his father had been teaching him about subtlety and cunning, he would teach Potter and Weasley why you don't mess with a Malfoy while remaining free from retaliation.

* * *

_I wanted this chapter to show that Harry isn't perfect, he overreacts to his friends being threatened (reasoning next chapter) and messes up Neville's broomstick by accident, in my eyes, Harry knows magic extremely well, he lacks formal training but can do most magic instinctively, people skills however? Not so much._

_Also PurelyMediocre suggested some different uses of offensive magic last week and I will be using them... mostly, one such suggestion is that Avada Kedavra is a slow spell which is why it should rarely be used. Voldemort is different though… and it will be revealed why… in a few years maybe._


	13. The Workshop

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"How are you so good at magic? Because I have never seen you practise yet you always seem to know more about magic everyday"

"Well I am in a school you know, learning is part of the process- Ow that hurt! Fine! Fine, put your hand down, I practice before breakfast every morning, tell you what meet me outside your common room an hour before breakfast starts and I'll show you."

That was how the following morning Hermione was waiting outside the Gryffindor portrait waiting for Harry to show up, she had been meaning to talk to him about his skill for a while but had never gotten around to actually asking about it until the night before, Ron had left them early to who knows where, Neville who had stayed with the group after the flying lesson earlier that morning, had a detention with Professor Snape and mercifully the library had been unusually quiet, Hermione had pulled forth the courage that had gotten her placed in Gryffindor and asked as his skill had been bugging her since she first met the boy.

Now that morning had come she found herself impatiently waiting for Harry to turn up,

"Ready to go?" A voice asked from right beside her, screaming Hermione jumped away to see a grinning Harry beside her

"How did you do that?" She demanded, she was at a corner and could see down both corridors, there was no way Harry should have been able to sneak up on her unnoticed

"I was practicing a new spell I read about, it's called a notice me not and funnily enough it does what it says on the tin" He said cheekily

"Why would you want a spell like that though?" she said confused as to why Harry would be interested in such a spell

"For when you don't want to be noticed I would imagine"

"Prat" she said reaching up to smack his arm as Harry led her away.

Although unconfirmed it was theorised that children that grew up around magic grew up healthier than those that grew up away from magic, this was one of the 'facts' that Purebloods used to show how superior they were, it was also why you rarely saw overweight witches or wizards as the magic within their bodies improved basic functions such as metabolism and digestion, for Harry who had basically grown up not only practicing magic but channeling it throughout his body he was above average in height, tall enough that Hermione did have to reach up in order to get a good hit on his arm, although he was considerably smaller than Ron who was one of the tallest in the year.

Harry led Hermione through the castle, through many secret passages she didn't even know where there, when she asked Harry he said "Penelope showed me some of the passages and most of the time the magic covering the passages is different to the magic within Hogwarts walls which makes it easy for me to see them."

"Wait you can _see_ magic?" She asked amazed, he only winked and led her deeper into the castle, she noticed there was layers of dust under foot now yet Harry left no footprints in the dust, she pointed it out and looked behind her to see the footprints she had left, Harry told her to stay still and waved his wand at the corridor, immediately the dust coating the corridor rose off the ground only to settle again, Hermione was about to ask why he did that when she realised her footprints had disappeared under the new layer of dust, Harry then pointed his wand at her feet and twisted his wand, she felt nothing but when they moved on, she noted that she left no footprints either

"How did you do that?"

"The first was what I've started calling imbuing my magic, basically I can push my magic into something like the air or the dust and make it respond to basic commands such as rise, if I push myself I can make them do more but that normally leaves me exhausted, the second thing was a basic impervious charm focused specifically on the dust, the reason you leave footprints is your shoes have a slight static charge and the dust sticks to that charge, I just removed the charge from your shoes, if you kick you feet too much you will still move the dust but it is far less noticeable."

"Okay, what's with the secrecy though?"

"Fun for the most part, I just wanted to see if I could and it became a game of mine to avoid detection, the other reason is Dumbledore suggested it would be a good idea to keep some of my skills secret"

When he stopped Hermione couldn't tell why, she looked around but couldn't see anything interesting, looking back at Harry she tried to see what he was standing against but her eyes couldn't focus behind him so she looked elsewhere… she then forced her eyes back, she focused behind Harry and felt a force on what she had associated as magic telling her to look away, she pushed through and suddenly she saw a small door behind Harry, subconsciously she knew it had been there the whole time but she hadn't noticed it till the magic protecting it had been breached by her, amazed she tried to open the door to find it locked, she cast a number of unlocking spells she had learned but found none worked.

Glancing at Harry, Hermione saw he was grinning, remembering his previous tricks she looked at the entire door, or tried to, she found that she was unable to focus on the part of the door exactly across from the door knob, she forced her eyes once more and felt the obtrusive magic telling her to look away but fought it, this time it required much more effort on her part to break through, once though she saw a twin door knob and keyhole, it was identical to the one on the other side of the door down to the smallest detail, she tried to open it and was surprised to see it unlocked, she opened the door into the room and saw a simple cleaning cupboard, she turned to Harry and said "I give up, just show me how to get in"

Harry chuckled and reached forward and shut the door, he then opened the door outward into the corridor and revealed an empty classroom, she marveled at the security behind such an empty room and was in the process of turning away when she stopped herself and once more forced through the magic, this was the strongest one by far and by the time she broke through she was feeling exhausted and stepped into the room triumphantly.

Rather than appearing completely empty she saw the room was filled with a variety of objects, almost everything within the room was made out of an odd silver metal that she had never seen before, in the middle of the room was a large silver desk like the one in her father's study, the chair next to the desk was clearly metal, even the cushion embedded into the chair was made of the metal yet looked like it was made of fabric, she walked over and felt the cushion, while it wasn't the softest cushion it was still incredible soft and felt like it was made of silk, or more accurately like metal weaved into fabric she mused.

"I must admit I doubted you would be able to actually enter the room, good job. This is my workshop, I have made almost everything you see here"

"How? I mean, _you_ can't have made something like this table!"

"That's what I wanted to show you actually, look at my hand" she walked over and was amazed when she saw a liquid that glowed with a vibrant green pool out of Harry's hand, it was unnerving to watch yet she couldn't look way, she instinctively knew that what she was seeing was raw magic, it flowed and shifted and patterns appeared and disappeared within.

As it left his hand it bonded together, floating over his hand, Harry then waved his other hand over the ball of magic and it began to spin, quicker and quicker until it resembled a small tornado spinning over Harry's hand, Hermione saw the top of the ball begin to change, the same shiny metal that made everything in the room began frosted over the vibrant green magic, the change spread over the entire tornado of magic until it became frozen metal that looked like a tornado, he tossed it to Hermione who caught it and inspected it, amazed at what she held "This is your magic isn't it?" she asked stunned

"Yea, at first it was extremely tiring to make stuff out of it but eventually I guess I got stronger and more resilient, I feel vaguely tired making it but back in July when I made something far less complex than that I fell unconscious instantly, I think that making all these mithril objects is making magic easier for me, like exercising a muscle."

"Mithril?"

"It's what Dumbledore called it, supposed to be a rare metal." Harry said shrugging

"What can it do?"

"As far as I can tell, anything, it can conduct electricity and heat normally but when I create it I can force it to act differently, for instance the chair is heat proof and resistant to electricity, while that tornado sculpture has the default conductivity levels, something I did find is that mithril can also conduct magic, but I suspect it is limited to only conduct the creators magic, for example I can pull something across the table using the table as a foci and it makes spells easier, the only issue is any spell I cast through the table can only affect objects close to the table."

"That's amazing, but doesn't it break the laws of transfiguration?"

"See that's what I thought, I first made the mithril orb over there by accident, incidentally, I now use it as a wand holder when I'm not carrying it as I don't want my wand to get damaged in an experiment the orb has a small forcefield around it, the only issue is I need to replenish the magic every so often. Anyway so when I first made the orb I saw it hadn't deteriorated overnight despite the book saying any transfiguration that doesn't have a sample will often not last longer than an hour, I then use my mage sight to look and the mithril seems to make its own magic, like a reactor in the muggle world and the magic it generates is used to constantly feed itself meaning it can never deteriorate."

"Wait they make their own magic? That goes against the conservation of magic law"

"Ah, but it makes magic the same way witches and wizards make magic,the magic in the mithril is identical to my own magical signature which is why my wand likes the mithril so much."

"So what you are saying is you can now make magic without using up your own supply?"

"Well… yes… however all of the magic made by the mithril is used to replenish the mithril, I can take my magic back out of the mithril but it causes the mithril to decrease, I have a band of mithril on my ankles so that if I require a boost in magic I can call upon them but that is more storing magic for later like a battery rather than reactor."

"If the mithril uses up the magic to restore itself what if you did something to make the mithril last longer so that less magic had to be used on itself, like a preservation spell or something"

"That… is a great idea! I've heard of a preservation rune... if I used that on the mithril it should generate 'free' energy that I could use! You're amazing Hermione!"

* * *

_This chapter takes place immediately after Ups and Downs and the next chapter picks up immediately after this chapter, I am mirroring the Hogwarts school schedule to my own and it has only been 3 weeks, in Hogwarts I would say they are in their fourth week and All Hallows eve is only a month away..._


	14. Good of the People

Harry and Hermione spent the rest of the hour discussion Harry's plans and ideas, she offered a suggestion for almost every project, some Harry pointed out would never work but others Harry readily accepted, eventually the alarm charm went off signalling that Harry only had five minutes to get to breakfast, Flitwick had taught him the charm when he had turned up late to his lesson as he had not kept track of the time, the two rushed to the great hall, neither noticed Dumbledore standing invisible down the corridor, he marvelled at how far Harry had gone since they had first spoken, he had kept note of the boy not just for his fame and future but because he saw himself within the boy so easily and he had promised himself that he would never let the boy go through the loss and pain that he himself had gone through.

He was impressed at the lengths Harry had gone to protect his secrets, he knew that Harry had learned little about defensive magic, focusing more on practical or visually impressive magic, so for Harry to make a defence that had managed to thwart Albus' curiosity for so long was an achievement in itself, the fact it was so simple was even more a testament to what Harry would be able to achieve with more knowledge and experience. To be truthful Albus was a fair bit humbled by the boy, he would have lacked the creativity needed to come up with such a defence without considerable planning at eleven. What people never realised was the Albus was human, he had to train hard to get to where he was, it was his ambition and cunning that had helped him become the most powerful wizard.

Of course despite Harry's defences and cunning if Albus had truly needed to force his way into Harry's workshop he would have been able to as he could sense the magic protecting the door and in states of emergency Hogwarts herself ripped down minor protections such as notice me not wards to allow students to easily escape or seek shelter, but his defences worked wonders for stopping the idly curious, it had taken Albus a while to figure out which door Harry actually went into and then more to actually find the correct door knob as he had first assumed Harry would not have used the same trick twice, once he had the correct door knob he had spent an entire day testing every single thing within the cupboard, the entire room was filled with Harry's magic so Albus couldn't just use his own mage sight to see which item Harry recently used, eventually he had realised that the secret didn't actually lie within the cupboard and he had been forced to watch and see what Harry did to enter his room and was shocked to see him open the door outwards, every other door within the school opened inwards and so Albus had assumed that Harry's workshop would also open inwards.

Where Harry had learned such magic Albus was unsure until he used his powers as Headmaster to see through the walls and saw a cleaning cupboard identical to the one Harry used exactly across from the Workshop, the door into that cupboard had been magically shrunk to a third its normal size and then the entire door was hidden behind a plate of mithril enchanted with a notice me not, the plate of mithril made the cupboard door much harder to break into and due to being so low down even Albus' magic sight glossed over it, a closer inspection revealed that there was a subtle notice me not that was focused on the external magical signature, on a normal enchantment that wouldn't work as it would give off its own external signature while hiding the first signature, however with the mithril the notice me not seemed imprinted within the metal, so that the notice me not focused on the metal hid the second notice me not that hid the signature given off by the first, it gave Albus a headache to think about.

Albus had never seen anything like it before and suspected if he were not headmaster with powers Harry would not have had any way of knowing about his trick would have gone entirely unnoticed, the doorway leading to the workshop was also lined with mithril strips with the same enchantments as the plating apart from one additional enchantment that Albus couldn't detect due to the notice me nots and he was unwilling to strip down such beautiful magic, Albus suspected that the mithril strips acted as a mix of space manipulation and illusion, he would have noticed if he was magically moved from the doorway to the cupboard even if it wasn't impossible due to Hogwarts wards, however what the wards didn't stop was the rooms moving, the entire castle was saturated with magic and it was not unheard of for entire classrooms to move locations.

If Albus were to make something such as this he would make the mithril call to the room across the hall, as Albus himself had told Harry it was always easier to cast make it there was a correlation and the broom cupboard was on the same elevation and horizontal position as the workshop, that would mean that less magic would be required meaning less magic to hide, he would then use an illusion over the cupboard to hide any inconsistencies that might show up, such a setup wouldn't stop a determined attacker though, as the workshop was still physically there behind the cupboard so by breaking through the cupboard you would be able to enter the room through the cupboard, another weakness was that the enchantments only triggered if the door was opened so if the door where to be removed before being opened then the cupboard would never be told to move in the first place.

A sudden thought occurred to Albus and he withdrew a sherbet lemon he always carried and opened the door inwards, triggering the cupboard to be summoned, he then placed the sweet inside the cupboard and closed the door then opening it outwards, the sweet was now in the workshop in exactly the same position it was within the cupboard, Albus suspected this was either an oversight or fail safe on Harry's part as once the enchantments released the cupboard it went back to its original location but only took with it what was sent over originally, so anything placed within the summoned cupboard did not get sent to the original cupboard so fell through into Harry's workshop when the cupboard disappeared around it.

Albus decided to have a little joke and transfigured the sweet into his symbol, a circle with a triangle inside it finished by a line below, he charmed it to float eye level to Harry along with a preservation charm, it would last for as long as the charm held power which for Albus meant his 'calling card' would remain for at least two months, he had overheard Hermione and Harry talking about preserving the mithril to trick it into generating magic and Albus was interested to see if it would work and felt they could do with something charmed with preservation to experiment with, returning the favour Albus felt he owed Harry for letting him experiment with the mithril.

Casting a longing glance at his symbol he shut the workshop door and left for breakfast, after Gellert Grindlewald had left him and taken the symbol of the deathly hallows for his own Albus felt it would be poor taste to keep using it himself, however he still wanted to secretly tell others he was a 'searcher' of the Hallows so he had fashioned himself the new symbol, each Hallow represented a different attribute many searched for, the wand represented power in the present, the stone represented peace for the past and the cloak was safety in the future. The deathly Hallows symbol itself showed power starting within but eventually leaving peace while both power and peace remained within safety.

Albus' own version showed safety within peace, underlined by power, for many decades now it had been his inspiration and ideal goal, to obtain safety within peace while possessing the power to ensure said peace remained, as he aged he had stopped using his symbol so much, the current generation would most likely not even recognise it was his.

The members of the Order of the Phoenix had worn necklaces with his symbol engraved upon it to show their devotion to his cause despite him despising such acts as he felt it was too much like branding like Tom had done to his own followers, however when Lily had come forth with a suggestion that the necklaces be charmed so that any member of the order could apparate to other members, it used the protean charm on each necklace to act as a channel for the magic to follow allowing the apparition to be easier and harder to block, it had saved many lives as it allowed the Order to easily get to areas they were needed, often Albus apperated through anti-apparition wards then the Order would apparate to him. Albus still wore his necklace under his robes although the various charms Lily had enchanted them with had long since died with her, when Albus had felt the charms break he had known, instantly that she was dead and that Voldemort must have gotten through their defences, he would never understand how Sirius would have betrayed James like that but as Rubeus had seen Sirius immediately after the Potters death the information had clearly not been tortured out of him and James had sworn to him that Sirius was his secret keeper… Albus shook off the depressing line of thought and walked into the great hall.

* * *

_Dumbledore background, yay_

_The logo for the story is the symbol Dumbledore talked about. In case it wasn't clear Harry's protections would not have really stopped Dumbledore, however he was curious and wanted to play Harry's game and was impressed at the level Harry was at as an 11 year old, if Albus was 11 he probably wouldn't have been able to break in... on that note I was thinking of writing a one-shot of cannon Harry being sent back 100 years to when Albus started Hogwarts, either as a class mate or teacher, would anyone want to read that or ?_


	15. Familia Leporem

Neville felt he was forgetting something but the trouble was he was unsure of what he was forgetting, he sat down for breakfast and didn't notice when Hermione sat down next to him, he also didn't notice when Professor Dumbledore entered a short while after her, however he did notice when she poked him in the arm rather forcefully for ignoring her

"Uh, wha?" He stuttered, still half asleep

"I asked you a question Neville, honestly!" Hermione said impatiently

"Oh, what was the question?"

" I asked why you looked so tired"

"Because I was up most of the night wondering what I had forgotten"

"Oh, well what did you forget?"  
"If I knew what I had forgotten then I wouldn't have said I had forgotten it!" Neville snapped

"Well how about we go over important items first then move onto other items?" Hermione said calmly

At that moment an owl landed in front of Neville carrying a letter, it was unsigned and simply said '_I have what you have lost, trophy room, tonight at midnight, tell nobody'_ he showed it to Hermione who passed it over to Harry after she had read it, Harry then passed it on to Ron with his own message saying '_Meet in library after lessons, we will discuss a plan then'_

For Neville the day passed far too slow, all day the only thing he could focus on was whatever item he had lost, by the time dinner rolled around he was dreading the howler he knew his Gran would be sending him when she found out, when he finally sat down in the library he didn't see the serious look on Harry's face, it came as a shock therefore when Harry started talking as Neville had never heard Harry be so cold and serious

"Neville, you and Ron are going to head towards the trophy room at midnight, me and Hermione are going to be waiting outside the trophy room to see who has this item, when you enter the room I expect some type of trap to be set off so me and Hermione will be waiting ready to counter any trap but if we see anyone enter the room we will follow and offer support, we then take whoever is in the room to Dumbledore"

"But Harry, its against the rules to be out of the common room after curfew!" Hermione argued

"Hasn't stopped me before, Dumbledore even joined me once" Harry said shrugging

"So the stories about you and Dumbledore are true then?" Ron asked excitedly

"Err, ish, he just showed me the third floor corridor then showed me the kitchens where we talked about magic and stuff, I'm fairly sure he follows whenever I explore the school, though I've never caught him doing it."

"Wicked! I wish I could get away with stuff like that" Ron said in awe

Neville and Ron left the common room just before midnight, they didn't see anybody on the way down, not even Filch or Mrs Norris, they entered the trophy room but couldn't see Harry or Hermione, inside the room they saw Neville's remembrall on the ground, without thinking Ron reached down and picked it up, instantly the door slammed shut and the sound of a lock was clearly heard, alongside the door a screeching was heard and a large trophy tipped over revealing a very annoyed Mrs Norris, knowing Filch would soon be along the two boys desperately tried to open the door, Ron even charged into it a few times but it did not budge.

On the other side of the door Harry and Hermione had hidden under a notice me not charm, they had seen Draco Malfoy sneak into the trophy room an hour before midnight with a clearly silenced Mrs Norris, he spent almost an entire hour in there before he had left the room without Mrs Norris and rushed away, shortly after Ron and Neville showed up and triggered the trap as the only door into the trophy room had locked, together Harry and Hermione ran over to the door and began casting all the unlocking spells they knew, however every time they unlocked the door it seemed to lock itself instantly before they had a chance to open the door, they froze when they heard Filch nearby, in a moment of panic Harry reached out with his magic and cut the locking mechanism, he then hurriedly yanked open the door and quickly pulled Ron and Neville out and into the corridor, he then began casting numerous notice me nots over them, aided by Hermione as he had taught her the basic version of the spell Flitwick had shown him, he then turned to Ron and Neville and held a finger to his lips just as Filch turned the corner, Harry had put his hand over Neville's mouth just as the boy let out a surprised yell managing to stop him making a noise.

Filch passed them without registering them and hurriedly entered the trophy room where he fell to his knees upon seeing Mrs Norris stuck within the trophy, he quickly scooped her out and held her close whispering to her until she calmed, Harry thinking quickly summoned an eagle quill identical to the ones Malfoy used and pushed it into the room behind Filch with his magic, Mrs Norris saw it and followed it with her eyes, when it settled on the ground she jumped out of Filch's arms and started batting the quill, Filch picked it up and strode off to find whoever was on duty that night to report what had happened, the four first years hurried back to the Gryffindor common room, their notice me nots fading as they ran, once he had made sure his three friends were safe Harry had hurried back to his own dormitory and into his bed.

* * *

The following morning Harry went to his workshop as normal, Hermione had told him the night before while they were guarding the trophy room that she wouldn't be joining him, Harry was planning to practice some more of the advanced charms that Flitwick had shown him, after his first charms lesson Flitwick had passed him notes on spells he might find interesting for the first few weeks, Harry found these notes invaluable as they often led him to paths of magic he might never imagine on his own, he had made a habit of waiting behind class to show Flitwick his progress on the charms, sometimes Flitwick would pass him a note of a charm with a warning that it was considered an extremely difficult charm and more often than not, Harry had to admit that he had been unable to even get any results out of those charms, Flitwick without fail told him not to worry about it and the next note would be one Harry could master quickly, then building up again until Harry was unable to cast them, repeating the loop over and over.

Harry had quickly realised that structured spells taught by Flitwick were extremely difficult to cast wandlessly and the time it took him to get any effect wandlessly could have been spent mastering new spells with a wand, he had therefore given up trying to learn the charms wandlessly and had gradually started using his wand more and more, he did find it easier to use magic overall and for the more basic spell that he had mastered wandlessly he did not even have to think about them to get a passable effect with his wand, however with his wand he was completely unable to summon mithril with his wand and he suspected that was due to either his wand's own signature competing with his own or a block deliberately placed on wands to prevent the summoning of raw magic.

The trial and error approach had allowed Flitwick a much greater understanding of what Harry was capable off and had let him move onto what was known as '_familia leporem_' which roughly translated to "family of charms", Flitwick had explained that charms within a "family" all had similar results with varying difficulties and affects, the current family that Flitwick had Harry practicing on was the _Lux familia_, the family of light, he started with _Lumos_, which Harry found extremely easy to cast as it was similar to a spell he had developed at the Dursleys, he then moved onto _Lumen_, the glow spell, unlike _Lumos_ which only made the tip of the wand light up _Lumen_ made the entire wand glow faintly, Flitwick told Harry that it was useful when reading in the dark as it did not require the user to have to awkwardly point their wand at their book the whole time, after _Lumen_ came _Lychnus_ which did not light up the user's wand but the object the user was pointed at, these three where considered the easiest and Harry could cast all three without much thought, _Lychnus_ was the hardest for him to cast and he found whatever object he charmed lost its light after a few minutes of him shutting off his magic.

Flitwick had shown him two other light charms, the first was _Lux_ which was the most like _Lumos_ in that it made the tip of the wand light up, Harry theorised that either _Lumos_ evolved from _Lux_ or _Lux_ evolved from _Lumos_ as they were so similar, however unlike _Lumos_ or _Lumen_ the user could still use their wand to cast magic without losing the light source, the downside to this charm was that it requires the user to focus on the charm at all times, Harry _could_ cast _Lux _however he wasn't able to split his focus enough to keep the light going and cast another spell, either the light died or the spell failed to form correctly, the second charm was _Lucidus Inundatio_, the flood of light charm, it was one of the most powerful light charms and when cast successfully would completely fill a room with light, the caster could control if the level of brightness, from barely visible to blinding, Flitwick had told Harry that more than once he had managed to use _Lucidus Inundatio_ to win a duel as his opponents did not expect the very room to fill with light, Harry tried to cast it but found himself severely lacking the power to do anything more than remove the shadows with the room.

To successfully cast _Lucidus Inundatio_ the caster's magic had to flood into the room first and then apply light directly to the magic, this took tremendous strain on the casters magic and required extreme focus for both the magic and the light, despite Harry's previous experiments in controlling his magic in such a way he was unable to apply charms to his magic while he was controlling it, when Harry had tried it he had just managed to get his magic to fill the room but when he had tried to light it up his magic had collapsed leaving him drained and exhausted and Flitwick had cautioned him to not try it again until he was stronger magically and mentally.

Already running through the incantations and wand motions to the _Lux familia_ charms so that he could begin casting them immediately when he got to his workshop he was extremely surprised when he opened his workshop door to see a metal sculpture floating in before him, cautiously he cast a basic diagnostic charm to check for any malicious spells however it came up with nothing so Harry felt more confident to get closer to it, he felt some recognition at seeing the sculpture despite never seeing it before in his life.

His mage sight did not reveal any magical signature however that did narrow down who could have placed it there, Harry doubted any student would have been able to cast such complex magic while also keeping their magic signature masked, Harry had found that to mask his signature he had to tone down the power of the spells by increasing his intent and focus, this allowed the spells to still work however no amount of focus or intent could improve the power so while he could change a matchstick to a needle without leaving a trace and his needle looked perfect it would revert back to a matchstick significantly quicker than the other students, Harry doubted that there were any students capable of masking their magic on a complex transfiguration such as this as well as the levitation charm, the students that were possibly capable of such magic presumably wouldn't care enough about Harry to break into his workshop in the first place and waste their magic and time on something harmless.

That left one of the teachers as the culprit, out of all the teachers in the school, Harry had only actually spoken to three outside of lesson, those being Dumbledore, Snape and Flitwick, he suspected that could Flitwick have followed him one day but he would have left a note and had no reason to mask his magical signature as it was fairly well known by know he was helping Harry, Harry suspected that Snape would not have left a calling card in the first place and would have kept his knowledge of the workshop quiet for his own reasons, that left Dumbledore, he would have the time and the cunning to track down and break into his workshop and was flamboyant enough to leave a calling card while also masking his magic so that nobody could actually prove it was him.

Harry figured Dumbledore must have had a reason to leave the symbol, assuming it was him and Harry hadn't just made a mistake so Harry moved it onto a nearby shelf, he then spent the rest of his time going over the various light charms until hunger won him over and he left for breakfast, when the post owls arrived Harry ignored them like normal, after all he had nobody that would owl him as everyone that cared about him was in Hogwarts anyway so it came as a shock when two completely different owls landed in front of him and offered him their letters, the first was written in an untidy scrawl while the other was much neater and elegantly written with bright green ink, it also had the same triangle, circle and line symbol on the bottom corner of the envelope, Harry pocketed that letter as he felt he shouldn't upon it with so many people nearby, he then turned back to the first letter and opened it and read the short message inside; "_Dear Harry, I was wondering if you and your friends wanted to come down and have a cup of tea and a bit of a chat, I knew your parents very well and would love to tell you some stories about them. Rubeus Hagrid"_

* * *

_If it wasn't already fairly clear by now the magic within this story with differ from cannon a lot, for example some spells from cannon will be gone entirely while others will have different effects, for example Lumos Maxima, for some spells I can see how adding "great" to the end would improve the effect such as reducto, however for Lumos Maxima either makes the light flash bright then fade away like in the prisoner of Azkaban movie or make a ball of light float around like in Half Blood Prince, neither of which really relate to Lumos at all, like JK Rowling's magic is actually fairly limited if you think about it and by giving one spell multiple uses (such as the patronus) just limits it even more, you have witches and wizards that are actually fairly lazy, it's more in character for them to have many spells for many things than one spell for many._

_Also I will say I am only using google translate and picking what I want, the spell translations will more than likely be wildly wrong and as Harry progresses I will start to lose the names for spells as they will become obsolete… but that's all to look forward to._


	16. Albus investigates

Albus had spent all night listening to Argus complain about students being out of bed and the treatment they had given Mrs Norris, he had originally gone to Minerva who had told Argus to tell Albus, he quite agreed with Argus about the students responsible needing punishment but wished the man could have come forth with his complaint in the morning when he was more awake.

In his youth Albus could go a fair few nights without rest as his magic was able to let his body rest even while his mind was awake, a useful skill for first the war with Gellert then later with Tom, however as he aged he found even his mighty magic struggled to compensate for lack of sleep, but despite his tiredness he dutifully went down to the trophy room to try and find out who was responsible, Argus had presented him with an eagle feather quill that he found at the scene of the crime and Albus was going to his colleagues if they knew of a student that used an eagle feather quill.

A quick scan for magic revealed a masked notice me not, a stasis and locking enchantments, both belonging to Draco Malfoy, a plethora of unlocking charms, some had Harry's and Ms Granger's signatures on while others were masked which Albus suspected belonged solely to Harry and finally a rough severing charm on the lock with Harry's signature that had the uncontrolled edge of accidental magic, Albus tested the door and came to the conclusion that the entire locking mechanism would need replacing as Harry's severing charm had damaged the lock to such an extent it would require more work to fix than it would take to replace it, due to it being damage done by accidental magic Albus would first have to purge the magic out of the entire locking mechanism then cast a repairing charm, in order to purge the magic the lock would have to be completely removed from the door in the first place and Albus couldn't see the point in wasting magic for such a minor reason.

Mentally deconstructing the scene Albus walked over to the notice me not residue and realised from this position he could see both the door and all the way down the corridor leading to the trophy room, he then imagined Mr Malfoy casting a very advanced locking enchantment, most likely taught to him by his father, Albus suspected one or more of Harry's friends had been locked inside, most likely alongside Mrs Norris, Harry and Ms Granger had then tried to unlock the door but due to the complexity of the enchantment Mr Malfoy had used they had no effect, as Harry started panicking his control of magic slipped and his signature became visible until his magic either acted on its own or with limited instruction and severed the entire lock on the door, despite the crudeness of the spell Albus admired the, albeit limited, creativity behind it, if the door can't be unlocked, simply break the lock.

Closer inspection of the door revealed Mr Malfoy's stasis enchantment was linked onto a possession rune within the trophy room, a possession rune only activated when an object was placed on top of it then deactivated when the object was removed, the stasis enchantment must have been placed first with the possession rune and an object on top, then with the stasis enchantment active overlay it with the locking enchantment, Harry's friends remove the object and the rune deactivates making the stasis fail and letting the locking enchantment to activate, a fairly effective trap, during the war with Voldemort some Death Eaters had used similar traps, of course those were far more lethal than this juvenile prank, the locking enchantment had been a favourite of an 'unknown' inner circle Death Eater, the enchantment itself was a thing of beauty as rather than a normal locking charm that would lock once and then resist the magic of whoever tried to unlock it this one would just constantly reapply itself, layering on one lock on top of the previous so despite the relatively low magical resistance it was often extremely time consuming to actually break it down, especially if it had been up for some time, it was not foolproof, the Order had quickly learned that a simple stasis charm would stop it reapplying itself, likewise the enchantment was useless if it had nothing to actually lock as Harry had discovered last night.

Overall Albus decided Mr Malfoy must have stolen something from Harry or one of his friends and placed it inside the trophy room alongside Mrs Norris, he then must have left a message telling Harry and his friends to collect it later that night and then tipped off Argus that students were in the trophy room, Mrs Norris would be bait to convince Argus to catch them, the problem would be proving it, ideally Mr Malfoy would be punished for this, not only had he most likely stolen, he had been out of bed after hours and had traumatised Mrs Norris while doing it, but should he try to punish Mr Malfoy his father, Lucius, would try to get him out of trouble and with so little evidence Albus doubted he could get any punishment to stick and even if he could Lucius would demand that Harry and his friends also be punished as they were also out after hours and had broken school property, if he were to punish Harry for doing the right thing then Harry would be less likely to trust him and that was the last thing Albus wanted, he wanted to ensure Harry was safe and happy and couldn't do that if the boy actively avoided him, Tom had never trusted him and look how that had turned out.

In the end, Albus decided there was nothing he could officially do about Mr Malfoy, of course, that didn't mean he couldn't tell Argus who he suspected had hurt his cat and Albus couldn't be held responsible if Harry just happened to teach Mr Malfoy a valuable lesson…

With the mystery of the trophy room finished he told Argus that while he had no evidence one of the portraits had told him they saw Mr Malfoy carrying Mrs Norris into the trophy room and that he suspected the quill he had found would belong to the boy as well, it was of course a complete fabrication as he had not even spoken to the portraits but he knew the importance of keeping powers and abilities secret and Argus had never been the most loyal to him or the school, with that matter dealt with Albus decided he would have a spot of breakfast before starting on the mountain of paperwork he had to complete before the next Wizengamot session, it was times like these that Albus was glad he had managed to acquire a time turner for without it he would never have the time to do anything.

* * *

_Smaller chapter this week, mostly just filler I admit, expanding upon the magic of this world and Albus' character, next week chapter is almost twice the size of this one, normally I would just move some of the next chapter into this one but it would mess up the flow of that chapter._


	17. Wulfric

As Harry had no lessons that morning he went back to his workshop with Hermione, once there he showed her the metal sculpture and then opened the letter from Dumbledore "_By the time you have received this letter you will most likely have found my sculpture, you will note it has a levitation enchantment and a preservation enchantment, you will have at least two months to examine it before the magic will wear out, use the time well. _

_-Wulfric_

_P.S You should also know that when I placed the sculpture I had not opened the workshop door, should you wish to protect your secrets further you may wish to overcome this fault._"

When he finished reading the letter he laughed and handed it to Hermione who asked "Who is Wulfric? I've never heard anyone here called anything close to that, is it a code or nickname?"

"Tell me Hermione, who would have the power to make a sculpture made of silver that is estimated to last two months, have the patience and skill to find this workshop but the respect to warn me about it? Finally what is Dumbledore's full name?"

"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore… no you can't be suggesting this is from _Dumbledore_! That's preposterous, why would he do that?"

"Who knows, all that matters is he did, I mean we all know he has a sense of humour and people think he is a bit mad, what's important is that he has given us exactly what we wanted, it makes sense he would want us to figure out how to do it ourselves, also I would guess he used another name is so he can't be accused of favouritism."

Harry spent the rest of the free time trying to teach Hermione how to summon mithril, however she did not have the years of experience with magic that Harry had when he had first made mithril himself, however fortunately for her, she did not have to learn it from scratch and had a very good teacher, by the end of their free period she felt more in touch with her magic and had even managed to make her hand glow faintly, the day passed in a blur for Harry, for the most part because he already knew the subject materials, so far Harry considered transfiguration and charms the most boring lessons, Flitwick's notes helped somewhat but as he had taught himself most of the material years ago the lessons held no challenge for him.

Herbology was rather uninteresting to him, he enjoyed learning about the different plants and what they could do but found actually caring for them rather boring, he shared the lesson with the Gryffindors and often worked with Neville, their classmates often said that Neville was as good at herbology as Harry was good at charms. Astrology was also interesting in theory but sitting down and watching the stars for an hour at midnight was a boring and often cold affair, potions was the only subject that actually tested Harry and he enjoyed it immensely, Professor Snape often tested him on his knowledge every lesson, history of magic was dull both in theory and in practice, Harry suspected he would enjoy defense against the dark arts and from reading ahead he thought it looked cool and was disappointed he would have to wait a whole year.

Overall however the Hogwarts subjects were a bit of a let down, of course the school made up for it will the private tutoring he was receiving from Flitwick and the ability to practice magic safely without risk, Harry was most disappointed by the other students, most of whom seemed to either be in awe of him or hate him, with only a few ignoring him altogether, as such Harry ignored almost everyone which had resulted in him having few friends, he still worked with Justin in potions but rarely spoke to him outside of lessons, Justin had no trouble making friends and was extremely popular with both the other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, Justin once admitted to Harry that the sorting hat had considered placing him in Hufflepuff but his thirst for knowledge had won out, Harry was friends with Ron and Neville of course but his best friend would always be Hermione, he also considered Professors Dumbledore and Flitwick his friends despite the age differences, growing up Harry had no friends so was thrilled he had finally met people who could stand him and was determined to keep them at all costs.

In return for Neville helping him in herbology Harry regularly helped him in transfiguration and charms, under Harry's tutorage Neville's confidence had risen and more often than not he did actually manage to complete the task before the lesson ended, they also helped each other during their flying lessons, both were afraid of falling but together they learned how to relax and enjoy the experience of flying.

As the weeks drove on Harry and Hermione spent their free time trying to figure out how '_Wulfric's_' preservation charm worked and how to apply it to the mithril, simply wishing for the mithril to start with a preservation did admittedly work however the mithril generated less power as a response so there was no magical 'gained' from doing so, Harry knew the preservation charm would need to be applied after the mithril had formed and theorised that it would have to be the mithril's creator that applied it, Hermione had found a reference in the library to a preservation charm that looked promising despite not being the enchantment they needed, Harry had started work on learning the charm however it was an OWL level charm and was exceedingly complex, Harry could have asked Flitwick to help him but two factors stopped him, the first reason was that he wanted to prove to himself that he could still learn magic without needing help like he had done at the Dursleys, the second was Flitwick would ask why he wanted to learn it and Harry doubted he could hide his use of mithril and even though he liked Flitwick he didn't trust him with that secret yet, as such he felt it would take all year to learn even the simplest preservation enchantment.

He had also spent a lot of time helping Hermione try and form mithril, she had come a long way from not even knowing she had magic to being able to guide it into a specific part of her body, in this case her hand, however once the magic reached her hand she struggled to get it to leave, she had once managed to get a wisp of magic to leave her palm but rather than solidify into mithril it turned an ash grey and evaporated into nothingness, Harry had been thrilled that his friend had managed so much even if it had failed, Harry suspected she did not truly believe she could do it meaning her will was lower, however Harry spent his time building Hermione's confidence and finally she had

managed to get a small mithril ring to form, Harry was so focused on that ring of magic he did not notice Hermione slumping over until she fell onto him and he realised she had fallen unconscious from the exertion, panicking he shook her and was relieved when she woke up, bleary eyed she looked at him and mumbled "What happened?"

"You managed to get some magic and made a mithril ring but you also lost consciousness temporarily, I assume from magical exhaustion."

"But that's never happened to you! Why do I fall unconscious from summoning a small ring when you can summon a giant, complicated tornado and get slightly peckish!"

"Keep in mind Hermione that when I first summoned mithril I fell asleep for about seven hours and I had been doing magic for years even before that, you have only had about two months actually doing magic and that's with a wand, magic is both easier and less personal with a wand meaning you don't become as familiar with your magic. Honestly I doubt I'd be able to even manage a small ring if I were in your position."

Harry placed Hermione's ring on the tabletop and told her to try to make a new one, meanwhile Harry was also experimented more on his own mithril inspired by Hermione's theories, this led him to the discovery that he could imbue the mithril with charms that would remain activated forever, he already knew from designing his defenses that he could wish for an action to happen with the mithril when he formed it however he had considered that just an extent of using mithril as a magical foci, what he was learning now was he could go beyond even that and imbue actual charms into the mithril that would apply themselves to either the mithril or anything the mithril touched.

Picking up the tornado sculpture he had made when he first showed Hermione his workshop he melted it back into magic while also forcing it to retain its shape, he then hollowed it out inside so it looked like a cup and then finally imbued it with aguamenti, this was a big test for him as he was nowhere near able to actually cast aguamenti for any stretch of time and wanted to see if he could cast it through the raw magic to keep it going indefinitely, nothing seemed to happen however so Harry let it turn back to a solid only for it to start shooting out powerful blasts of water in all directions, panicking Harry turned the mithril back to raw magic and was relieved when the water stopped, looking around he winced as he saw his workshop was now flooded and Hermione was giving him a death glare behind her soaked hair

"Sorry" He said sheepishly, seeing an opportunity for another test he commanded his magic into the water the same as when he pushed his magic into the air or dust, he then willed the magic to heat up and rise into the air, he was unable to pick up all of the water and puddles still remained but there was a noticeable difference, he lifted the water up to the roof then once it was safely overhead he made it spin around, faster and faster and as it spun he willed it to heat up and boil, as the water droplets evaporated his magic released it and moved back down to pick up more water to replace it.

Hermione was absolutely stunned at what she was watching, at first she was mildly annoyed at him for getting her soaked but then he just casually lifted the water straight into the air without any wand or incantation, as he taught her more about the wonders of magic she had started to believe she was catching up to him in terms of magical power only for him to then do something so unbelievable she doubted she would ever be able to replicate the feat, she did notice that Harry was sweating a fair bit although that could also have been the heat and the steam, deciding to use what she had been taught by Harry she looked within herself for her flow of magic and then forced it to divert a stream of magic into the very air around her, she knew it worked when she could suddenly _feel _the air around her as if it were a part of her, recalling her science lessons before Hogwarts she willed the air around her to slow and cool down, this resulted in more steam being made by as the cold air met boiling water however it also made it far more bearable as Harry worked to remove the water.

It was with a sense of joy as Harry and Hermione worked together, with the two friend's magic sharing a singular purpose of removing the water their magic joined and shared power, Hermione gained greater control over the air as her magic got a touch of Harry's raw power and required less planning while Harry was able to pick up much more water with Hermione's will guiding him, they worked together until all the water had been evaporated and all the steam had dissipated, flushed with success Hermione threw her arms around Harry and hugged him fiercely, she did not notice how he tensed up and not return the hug as she was far too overjoyed to have been able to control the air, she had been unable to get her magic to obey her in such a raw and primal manner before, by the time she pulled away she realised her clothes and hair were still a mess and said "I'll see you at dinner Harry, I'm going to go change" and left quickly after she had cast a basic notice me not on herself.

Harry stood staring at the door long after Hermione had left, he was thrilled she had learnt to control the air and feeling their magic join with a single purpose was the happiest he had ever felt, even the hug had been nice once he got over his initial shock, in the end he just shook his head to clear his thoughts and went back to his cup, luckily before he had let go of his magic on the cup he had subconsciously removed the aguamenti enchantment from the mithril because it had solidified again, picking it off the ground he actual planned through what he actually wanted it to do, he figured he wanted it to fill up to the rim and stop before it could overflow, he also only wanted the water to try and fill the cup from the inside rather than the outside, with his plan now clearly in mind he refocused on the mithril and turned it back to magic, he then applied the aguamenti charm on just the inside of the cup then a line of stasis along the rim of the cup with its trigger being water.

When the cup solidified the inside filled with water again until it reached the rim were it stopped, Harry then raised it to his mouth and took a drink and was upset when the cup didn't refill, looking at the rim he saw some water was still sticking to the rim, annoyed he turned the cup back into magic, the leftover water fell through the magic like it was not even there getting Harry's shoes even wetter, putting aside his annoyance he added a small stud of mithril in the bottom of the cup and made that hold the aguamenti charm instead of the walls of the cup then removed the stasis charm from the rim and added it to the stud with the trigger being a small electric signal, he made the cup itself an insulator to both electricity and heat and then gave the rim a tiny electrical charm.

Once that was done he solidified the cup, instantly it began filling itself with water but stopped once it reached the rim, he took a drink from it without issue as the electrical current within the water was far too small to be noticed and once the level of the water got below the rim it filled up again, happy with his success in making an actually practical mithril object Harry add a cap to the cup to make it into a flask while still keeping the tornado design, he also moved the electric charm to the neck of the flask, no matter how vigorously he shook the bottle no water escaped as the mithril was perfectly fitted to each other and removing the lid required only a minimal amount of force to pop it off allowing him to take a drink.

* * *

_World building time, in case it was not clear yet mithril will hold a fairly important part of this story, which is funny as I had only come up with the idea of mithril when I wrote 'Pure Magic' and went with it… More Harry and Hermione bonding in this chapter, the next chapter will be the big payoff._

_I have also changed the first two chapters of this story into one larger chapter and fixed some issues, next week I will be adding a small little thing to chapter one as I did not want to add it until the Halloween chapter is released, which I have been planning since day 1… _


	18. Halloween

_For once the author's comment is going to be at the top! This is where the story splits from cannon permanently, __from now on will be almost entirely new ground. If I were doing this story in parts this would be the end of part one._

_Also I would suggest reading Chapter one as I have added an additional message at the top._

* * *

"You will lose boy, no matter how much you may see yourself as my equal you will soon find out just how wrong you are, just how far behind you are. I will destroy everything you hold dear and then I will destroy you, I promise you that and your Lord does not break his promises"

"Then I will just have to end you before you can!" he replied defiantly

* * *

Harry awoke on the morning of the 31st of October with a start, already the nightmare was fading, all he could remember was a vaguely familiar voice taunting him. Looking at his watch he sighed when he saw it was three hours before breakfast would be served, not wanting to go back to sleep Harry washed and dressed quietly and slipped out of the common room towards his workshop, opening his door he was slightly surprised to see Professor Dumbledore running his hand over his table.

"Good morning Harry, I hope you don't mind the intrusion but I suspected you would be coming here and did not want you to be alone" as Dumbledore said this his eyes twinkled kindly but Harry caught a look of regret too

"Er, thank you sir, but I don't understand why, what's so special about today?"

"Oh, I had hopped your… guardians would have told you... today marks the ten year anniversary of the defeat of Voldemort, as such it is also the day you lost your parents" Now the kind look was replaced by clear guilt and sadness, Harry barely noticed however as he was lost to his own emotions

"I didn't know… I never thought to ask when they died… did… did they love me sir?"

"My boy, they thought the world of you, it is my belief that the love your mother felt is what allowed you to survive that dreadful night. Indeed the day you were born James apperated right outside the gates and stormed into my office and announced to the whole room that you had been born. Gave the minister of magic quite a scare. Both your parents would have given anything to keep you safe."

"Thank you sir" Harry tried to hold back the tears, Dumbledore became rather interested in the table top, if they both took the time to wipe their eyes neither bothered to mention it.

"Should you wish to talk I will be in my office all day and you will find that saying 'sherbet lemon' will let you in, your teachers have also been told to let you leave should you need to for any reason."

Harry nodded and Dumbledore, seeing that Harry wanted to be alone, left the workshop. Harry looked at where Dumbledore had been standing and realised he had left behind some school reports, the student's name on the top was 'Lily Evans' Harry wondered if Dumbledore had left it there by mistake but decided to read the name of the student under, one 'James Potter' and Harry realised that Dumbledore had left him the reports of his parents when they were his age.

Harry sat down in his chair and pulled the reports towards him, the first report, Lily's, was from Filius Flitwick and reported "Miss Lily Evans cast a perfect, NEWT level, dueling chain, the target ended up with perfect antlers, warts and hair growth among stinging and tickling curses. However as she was meant to be casting just a singular tickling charm I had to deduct 50 house points from Gryffindor and send Mr James Potter to the infirmary." Underneath the main report a piece of parchment had been stuck saying "Madam Pomfrey informed me that it took her almost ten minutes to undo all of Lily's charms, simply marvelous, I have never seen a fifth year cast such powerful charms with each and every one being flawless in their effect, if only I could turn her attention away from hexing Mr Potter and onto casting the charms I actually set"

Chuckling Harry turned to his father's report this time from Minerva Mcgonagall "Mr James Potter showed a mastery level of transfiguration by turning Mr Sirius Black into a Norwegian Forest cat, Mr Potter appeared to base his transfiguration off Mr Filch's new Kneazle he calls 'Mrs Norris' as the marks on Mr Black where identical to the Kneazle, Mr Black showed signs that he retained control and displayed signs of intelligence, despite Mr Potter's obvious skill I was forced to assign both him and Mr Black detention as they were supposed to be transfiguring a block of wood into a lion. I have suspicion that Mr Black and Mr Potter have been experimenting with the animagus transformation as Mr Black showed remarkable control and experience in being an animal, will require further observation."

Harry decided he would need to look up this animagus transformation as it sounded interesting.

The rest of his morning was spent reading his parents various reports, one report stood out which described how Lily had protected a student named Severus Snape, Harry had not realised that Professor Snape was… would have been the same age as his parents, he acted and looked like he was far older, Harry was brought back to the present when his time spell triggered, Harry quickly formed a box inside his table and stashed the reports inside then sealed the table back up, from the outside it would be impossible to see the reports were hidden there and no scan would be able to penetrate the mithril, Harry suspected that he had gotten strong enough that it would take considerable force for even Dumbledore to over power mithril as dense as his table, closing the room he sealed it with a locking charm he had designed, inspired from the locking charm Malfoy had used on the trophy room, rather than being an enchantment on the physical lock his locking charm stopped the door opening into his workshop at all and even blowing a hole in the cupboard that replaced it would not reveal the workshop.

It seemed neither Hermione or Dumbledore had noticed that the door knob was now made of mithril as he had coloured it to the exact colour of the old brass door knob alongside his notice-me-nots targeted at the mithril, it would automatically unlock if it came in contact with either his own, Hermione's or Dumbledore's magical signature, Harry had realised that while he regularly masked his magic when he was actively casting magic when his magic was just resting within his body passively it remained unmasked, evidently by the fact that Dumbledore had entered his workshop before Harry had unlocked it he did not mask his passive magic either, entering the great hall he ate his breakfast quickly wanting to return to his workshop and read more about his parents, he only had charms after lunch, he was so focused on eating so that he could leave quickly he did not notice Hermione, sitting at the Gryffindor table clearly upset.

* * *

Hermione awoke and went through her normal routine, as normal she ignored her roommates and they ignored her in turn, as she was about to leave the common room she was shoved out of the way by a hungry Ron "Sorry Granger" he said over his shoulder as he hurried off, Neville grimaced uncomfortably as he hurried after him at a slower pace, despite the fact they spent so much time around her, Ron remained jealous and Neville preferred spending time with Ron than Hermione, neither hated her and once when a fourth year made fun of her both boys were quick to draw their wands and protect her yet at the same time they did not include her.

Once she reached the great hall she was sad to see that Harry was missing from his normal spot, her mood brightened when she received a letter from her parents however her mood came crashing down as the letter said that her grandmother had fallen ill and her parents were unsure if she would be getting better.

So far Hermione thought the day could not possibly get worse, she then remembered she had potions with the Slytherins before she could relax in charms with Harry, the potions lesson went worse than she expected as she was paired with Ron who spent the entire lesson talking to Seamus so it had fallen to her to make the entire potion, when Ron tried to help he almost blew up the entire cauldron, despite this Hermione felt confident in the quality of her potion, when she handed in her potion Professor Snape glanced down at it and commented "Adequate, Granger. Keep this up and you may actually be able to pass this course, the same cannot be said for Weasley"

Ron apparently heard this comment and looked angrily at Snape, as Hermione made her way to lunch she forced herself to not listen to Ron complain about Snape and who he had paired him with, sitting down at the Gryffindor table she was relieved to see Harry at his normal spot on the Ravenclaw table eating, she wanted to go over and talk to him but the school rules said that during meal times students should remain at their own tables while eating, it was only after they finished eating could they move to other tables, Harry seemed lost in thought and didn't even look her direction, the moment he finished eating he left the hall, Hermione hurriedly finished her food and made after him, she almost caught up with him until he walked through a solid looking wall, assuming it was a fake wall Hermione sped up to catch him only to slam into a very solid wall and crash to the floor, gazing at the ceiling for a minute or two she realised the wall must require a password, checking the time revealed she only had a few minutes to get to lesson so stood and hurried to lesson, to her shame she was one of the last to arrive and had to sit next to Ron, on the complete opposite side of the classroom as Harry.

When she sat down Harry looked over at her and gave a small smile and a wave, Hermione smiled back and instantly felt a bit better, Professor Flitwick called out roll call and then told the class to start working on the levitation charm, Hermione felt a small spark of envy when Professor Flitwick went to talk to Harry, normally as she sat next to him she got to join in on their conversations but today she was forced to just watch from a distance, Harry had evidently said something humerus as Professor Flitwick laughed and waved his wand over Harry's feather, Hermione thought that he might have made it heavier as rather than rest upon the table top like the other feathers it now seemed to press down onto it, Harry then swished and flicked his wand at the feather and it slowly started rising, Harry seemed to be struggling which surprised Hermione as he had cast a wandless levitation charm when they had first met and it would take a lot to forget the day he had shown her his workshop.

Turning back to her own work she noticed Ron waving his wand around wildly, fearing for everyone's safety she said "Stop, Stop, your going to take somebody's eye out, besides its 'Wingardium LeviOsa', not 'Wingardium Leviosah', I thought Harry already taught you how to cast it?"

Ron turned to her annoyed and said "you do it then if your so clever!"

Hermione sighed and turned to her feather, she cast the required wand movements exactly as the book outlined and enchanted "Wingardium Leviosa", her feather began floating instantly and remained level with her wand tip.

"Congratulations Miss Granger! Take ten points for Gryffindor!" Professor Flitwick cried happily, glad to see another student so good at his subject, next to him Harry grinned at her and gave her a big thumbs up, his own feather forgotten on his desk which had started to creak under the weight of the enchanted feather.

After lesson, Hermione noticed Harry stay behind to talk to Professor Flitwick but was pushed along by the crowd, deciding to meet Harry in his workshop she overheard Ron complaining, she was going to put it out of mind when she heard him say "It's no wonder nobody can stand her, she even annoys Harry, he once told me I'm his best friend and he only puts up with Granger out of pity!"

Upon hearing those words something within Hermione broke, the day had been too much for her and she had reached her breaking point, rushing past Ron she made sure to bump into him and heard Seamus say "I think she might have heard you mate"

She ran to the nearest bathroom and locked herself within one of the cubicles and let herself cry.

* * *

If Harry had known that Ron had upset Hermione he would have dealt with it instantly, in his mind, Hermione was and would always be his best friend and he would have done anything for her, however unfortunately he did not hear what was said as he had been talking to Flitwick about his mother's school report and then went back to his workshop to read about his parents until it was time for dinner, he assumed Hermione had gone to study in the library as she was prone to doing, Hermione preferred reading about Wizarding history and theory while Harry preferred learning about magic. During dinner he did notice that Hermione was missing and when he asked Padma Patil if she had heard anything about Hermione as her sister was a roommate of his friend, she looked at him shocked and said "I would have thought you would know, apparently Ron upset her after charms and she's been in the girls toilets ever since and has refused to come out"

"Oh…" Harry said shocked, his best friend had been so upset she was crying and he had only found out through someone else, seeing Ron look over guiltily at him he was about to get up and interrogate him when the door of the great hall where blown open and Professor Quirrell ran in screaming "Troll! Troll! In the dungeon, thought you ought to know." Before collapsing, Harry was up in an instant and made for the doors, he was grabbed from behind by Penelope who said "Harry! Calm down, we need to go back to the common room"

"No you don't understand, Hermione is in the girls bathroom and she doesn't know about the troll!"

Penelope's face drained of colour and started pushing her way through the crowd of students to get to the teachers, Harry turned back to the doors but the delay had caused them to be clogged with students, remembered the side door and made his way to it, he found it locked but forced his magic onto the door and obliterated it, he came out in an unknown area of the castle but hurriedly made his way to where he suspected the charms classroom was after placing a silencing charm on his feet and rather than mask his magic he made it more obvious.

* * *

Back inside the hall Dumbledore was just about to send his staff out to look for the troll when Ms Clearwater ran up to him "Headmaster, Hermione Granger from Gryffindor House is in the girls toilets and doesn't know about the troll, Harry here just told me"

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked confused, taking a moment to process what the prefect had said

"Yes sir, Harry Potter, he's right here… Fuck where did he go!"

"Minerva! Organise the staff, I need to collect Mr Potter and Ms Granger! Ms Clearwater with me!"

Gone was the kind grandfatherly Dumbledore, now he became the high arch-mage who had fought on the front line on two major wars, in an instant his magic swept over the hall in search of Harry's magic, it noted the destroyed door to the side and he charged over to it, he ensured Clearwater was behind him and swept through, instantly he detected Harry's magic leading towards the charms classroom, he quickly followed them, already fearing the worst.

* * *

Hermione first became aware that something was wrong when she heard the doors open and a terrible smell assaulted her nostrils, exiting the cubicle she froze when her eyes fell upon the troll, the part of her brain that was not frozen with fear helpfully supplied that it was a mountain troll. The troll had noticed her too and swung its club at her, she screamed and dived out of the way, all thoughts of magic long gone, this was one of the reasons Harry would always be better at casting magic than her, she always had to think about what she wanted and did not truly trust her magic to work, Harry instinctively formed magic to his will and knew it would work, even if it did not obey him immediately he knew it would only be a matter of time before it did, it was the difference between being a prodigy and being skilled.

Harry heard Hermione scream and pushed himself to run even faster, his magic reacted and enhanced his aching muscles, he almost tripped over his own feet in his haste and rather than waste time opening them blew the doors down on top of the troll "Hermione! Get over here!" Hermione scrambled around the dazed troll as it tried to dislodge the door pinning it to the ground, she jumped over to Harry who grabbed her hand and ran, behind her she heard the troll roar and Harry pulled her to the side just as the door went spinning passed them and lodged itself into the wall at the end of the corridor, needing no further encouragement the two terrified students ran, the troll hot on their heels as despite its weight and bulk it could cover far more ground than them and it had been promised food, skidding round the corner Hermione realised they had reached the moving staircases, luckily for them the stairs where positioned so that they had a clear path upwards, the moment they were both on the staircase it started to move away, cutting off the path for the troll.

At that moment the troll stumbled onto the landing, almost falling over the rail in front, it looked around stupidly until it spotted them, it stepped backwards and Hermione hoped it had given up but instead it began running and at the last moment jumped up over the railing onto the still moving staircase, it almost fell as its momentum caught up with it but it stabilized itself, Harry pulled Hermione upwards but on the staircase the troll could go up far quicker than they could, Harry felt the air move and pushed himself and Hermione to the ground just as the club sailed over them and destroyed the railing next to them, standing quickly Harry began firing every jinx he could think off but all bounced right off the troll.

Hermione saw Harry trying to jinx the troll and realised despite his skill at charms and transfiguration he was helpless against the troll, dread began to set in as she had believed Harry was unbeatable, she saw the troll swing its club again and realised Harry was not reacting to it, she lurched forward she pushed Harry forwards out of the path of the club. Feeling himself being shoved Harry turned mid fall to see Hermione standing above him before she was replaced by the wooden club, he heard a sickening smack, a girls scream, then a distant thud…

Blood pounded in his ears as Harry reached within himself for his magic and threw it at the troll that had just ended his best friends life, he threw his hand out towards the troll and all his magic and all his anger used that hand and movement as an outlet, forming a jagged, spiked spear of pure magic, more solid than the raw magic he normally summoned yet more malleable than his mithril, it sailed through the air and stuck the troll deep in the chest, it stumbled backwards but it the spear was not enough to kill it, Harry drew back his hand back, pooling his magic ready for another blast, already he could feel the effects of magical exhaustion but he would not let Hermione die in vain.

His magic, which had grown used to the feeling of Hermione's own magic nearby, cried out in its own form of rage as it felt the magic fade from her body, desperately pulling at the scraps of what was left of her magic Harry's own magic pulled it in and used it to fulfill its owner's rage and power, it was shaped by Harry's rage into a deadly spear and once more flew through his hand to the troll pushing it back to the ground, still it was not dead but Harry fell over as his body's energy got drained, the troll stood and stomped towards Harry when it suddenly stopped and looked down and saw the giant hole going straight through its heart.

It fell over and Harry saw a very angry Albus Dumbledore, wand raised and glaring down at the troll, he looked up at Harry and relief was evident in his eyes as Harry's exhaustion caught up with him and the world faded to black.


	19. Time Enough

Harry and Hermione made their way down to Hagrid's hut, Harry distantly noted the grounds looked like they were covered in fog but strangely he didn't care.

Upon reaching the hut Harry knocked and listened to Fang barking inside as Hagrid tried to get to the door, after politely accepting his tea and declining rock cakes they started chatting.

Eventually Hermione asked "So Hagrid, what exactly do you do as the keeper of keys and grounds?"

"Ah, well Hermione, I shouldn' be tellin' yeh students really... But I guess yeh two can be trusted! While I hold the keys, the wards around Hogwarts remain active, fer a little bit o' magic from me all yeh lot in the castle are safe. It's not as if I'm usin' tha' magic anyway.

"The keys also keep me informed o' whenever anyone enters or leaves the wards an' in times o' emergency I can even tell the wards to lock down, it's a big job but nothin' I can't handle."

"So what would happen if someone stole the keys off you Hagrid?" Harry asked curiously.

"If they were stolen whoever held 'em would be able to control the wards, there are some quite nasty wards tha' haven't been activated fer centuries but they could be raised at a moment's notice. O' course Dumbledore has a master key on him so he would be able to stop the thief before any harm could be done."

Hagrid paused then proudly added "O' course they would still have to get through me! In me youth I wrestled with professional muggles durin' my summers an' none o' 'em were ever able to beat me"

"So is Keeper of grounds the same thing, Hagrid?" Hermione asked after a short pause.

"Not exactly Hermione, as keeper o' the grounds I have to ensure all the animals an' creatures around Hogwarts are behavin' 'emselves. I reckon I know more about the grounds an' forest than any other!" Hagrid said proudly, from anyone else it would've sounded boastful, but Harry knew Hagrid was just being honest. It wasn't in the man's nature to boast or exaggerate.

"What type of creatures?" Hermione knew of some as they were mentioned in Hogwarts: A History, but figured Hagrid might supply her with some more knowledge of Hogwarts.

"Well yeh have the centaurs, acromantula, the magia lupus pack, I've got a hippogriff herd, a nest o' bowtruckles and unicorns" Hagrid said, counting them off as he went "Then durin' sprin' we normally see some redcaps, an' in summer fairies an' pixies an' the like. That's only the magical land dwellin' creatures! The forest is also filled with muggle animals tha' have been enhanced by the magic o' the forest itself an' o' course lake is filled with all sorts o' creatures."

"What do you mean magia lupus packs? I thought it was just a myth that werewolves lived in the forest!" Hermione said fearfully

"Ahh but see they ain't normal werewolves Hermione, not really. They're either wolves tha' are the offsprin' o' a turned werewolf an' a natural wolf or naturally born offsprin' o' two werewolves. While they do transform every full moon, they keep their mind unlike normal werewolves see.

"An' they are no more a danger to humans than any other wolf, o' course they stay far away from Hogwarts jus' in case an' the centaurs an' unicorns often help keep 'em at away. I'll tell ya, if it weren't fer the centaurs my job would be nearly impossible. Dead helpful they are, always make sure to warn me whenever anythin' big is comin' an' regularly patrol the forest to ensure everythin' is as it should be."

"Is Fluffy from the forest Hagrid?" Harry had thought of Fluffy regularly, it was hard not to when he knew the giant cerberus could tear him to shreds if he managed to escape

"How do yeh know about Fluffy!" Hagrid asked shocked, nearly dropping his cup of tea

"Dumbledore showed me him on the first night" Harry said worriedly, Dumbledore had told him it was okay to talk about it but now he thought he had said something wrong

"Who's Fluffy?" Hermione said utterly confused

"He's mine, I've had him since he was a pup, but Dumbledore had no right showin' him to someone as small as yerself Harry, Fluffy means well but he can be a bit boisterous an' fer someone yer size he could do a lot o' damage!"

"I was with Dumbledore, Hagrid, he wouldn't have let me get hurt. I think Dumbledore assumed I would try to sneak in when I was exploring the castle and he didn't want me to get myself killed." Harry said timidly

"Well yeh should put it outta mind Harry, what's goin' on up there is between Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel! Nothin' yeh need to worry yerself over."

"Hagrid believe me, if both you and Dumbledore tell me something is dangerous, I'm going to stay as far away as possible."

"Well tha''s good, if yer father an' his friends were here they would've tried to get in durin' their first week! In fact they often got caught tryin' to get into the wompin' willow when they first got here, James almost lost an eye tryin' to get in one night an' I think tha' made 'em back off."

The rest of their evening was spent with Hagrid telling them stories of the trouble Harry's father and his friends got into, it started to get dark when Hagrid said "Come on yeh two, out with yeh, it won't do any o' us any good if yeh got caught out on the grounds after dark. I'll see yeh two tomorrow."

* * *

Leaving the hut Harry and Hermione made their way back to Hogwarts, Harry noted that Hogwarts was also covered in fog and he was unable to see through it, Hermione turned to him and said "This is where we part Harry"

"No I don't want to leave you!"  
"You must, where I am going is not for the living, don't worry, we will see each other again won't we? This is just goodbye for now"

"I… I don't think I can cope without you… I'll bring you back! Magic must be able to bring back the dead!"

"Nobody can bring back the dead Harry" she said sadly

Harry reached forwards and pulled Hermione into a hug "I love you"

The grounds faded to white and Harry faintly heard "I love you too, Harry, I'll be waiting for you, but I have all the time in the world to wait."

* * *

"HERMIONE!" Harry cried jerking upright in the bed, Harry looked around frantically trying to find Hermione before the events from the last night caught up with him, he looked around and noticed Dumbledore sitting next to his bed, a sorrowful expression on his face as he studied Harry

"Harry, I am so very sorry, Miss Granger was a brilliant witch who did not deserve such a fate at such a young age, I know how it feels to lose someone so close to you so early in life." Dumbledore would not meet Harry's eyes as he said this and Harry pretended he did not see the headmaster's eyes watering.

Looking down at his lap Harry asked "Do you know professor or are you just saying that to make me feel better?"

Dumbledore sighed deeply "I believe you ought to hear my story, but I would deeply appreciate it if you keep what I'm about to tell you to yourself, when I was young, a few years older than yourself in fact, my sister was killed, my sister was mentally unwell and was unable to defend herself so it fell to me and my brother to care for her, unfortunately one day one of my friends was over and he got in a… disagreement with my brother, wands were drawn and both started shooting off spells, I was unsure who to support so decided it best to stop both of them, my brother has always been nearly as powerful as myself in raw power and my friend was equally powerful and even back then knew more spells than know even now… my sister saw the fighting and tried to stop it, where upon a rouge spell hit her… to this day I am unsure who cast the spell that ended her life and I feel it is unimportant, it was my fault for letting my friend near my sister when I should have protected her, my friend fled England and me and my brother never spoke again."

"Oh… I'm sorry sir" Harry said bashfully

"What's done is done Harry… but my biggest regret had always been not just that I let my sister die, but that I never spent the time to get to know her, I fear I envied her for having a quiet life that I never got to experience… I still which I had just a little more time to see her… so I have an offer to you… I would have given anything to see Ariana one last time and so I am asking would you want to see Miss Granger one last time, Harry?"

Shocked at the offer Harry could only nod, Dumbledore reached down the neck of his robes and withdrew a gold necklace with a weird circular device on the end

"This Harry is a time turner and it allows the witch or wizard wearing it to go back a few hours into the past as such we are a bit short on time but there should be time enough, due to the nature of time travel my requirements for this is that you allow me to place a charm on you that will stop you going more than ten feet from me."

Harry nodded once more, at a loss for words.

Dumbledore withdrew his wand and Harry became aware of a slight tingling from his magic, delving into his mage sight he saw that Dumbledore's wand was completely unique, all the other wands Harry had seen kept the colour of their wood and core, as such every wand was unique but Harry could subconsciously tell that the wands colour was different to that of its wielder, Dumbledore's wand however did not seem to actually possess its own colour, Harry could tell that this dark indigo was actually the colour of Dumbledore's magic rather than the wands, this confused Harry deeply as only his mithril reflected his own true magic.

Realising that Dumbledore had been casting a spell as he got lost in his thoughts he pulled himself back to reality as he felt Dumbledore's magic settle over him like a heavy blanket, Harry knew instinctively that it would be impossible for him to shrug it off by himself, looking at the magic it was still the dark grey of masked magic, Dumbledore then put the gold chain over Harry's neck and spun it five times, Harry felt the room spin around him and instinctively activated his mage sight, almost immediately he forced his eyes shut, but not before he caught sight of the kaleidoscope of colour, most prominent was pure gold which Harry had never seen before, he did not even realise that the colours of magic could glitter.

When Harry felt the room stop spinning he opened his eyes to see he was still in the hospital wing, Dumbledore removed the gold chain from his neck and tucked it back into an inside pocket of his robes

"Where to first Harry?" he asked kindly

"You're asking me?"

"This trip is for your benefit not mine, as such I will go where you want to go"

"Gryffindor tower then I guess"

Dumbledore bowed his head and set off, Harry thought he knew Hogwarts quite well but after Dumbledore led him through a secret passage that appeared to be a solid wall with no special magic Harry resigned himself to realise he would never discover all of Hogwarts mysteries. Arriving at the Gryffindor portrait Dumbledore waved his wand over their heads and Harry suddenly felt as if someone had cracked an egg over him, looking down he noticed his body had become invisible, looking at Dumbledore he was surprised that he could still clearly see the headmaster and from the way he was grinning back he could see him too

"If you wouldn't mind placing one of your notice-me-nots over us I would very much appreciate it Harry"

After he had been applied the charm Harry asked "Why do we need the notice me not if we are already invisible, Sir?"

"Ahh, well as you will know the notice me not can be defeated by someone actively looking for something, while the disillusionment charm can be defeated by somebody noticing us, while I hope that nobody will be able to see through my disillusionment charm I want to decrease the chances of us being found as much as possible, by layering a notice me not over the disillusion charm it becomes much harder for us to be found even if someone is actively looking for us as they do not notice any imperfections in the disillusion."

Clad under a spell of pure invisibility and charmed to be unnoticed Harry and Albus watched Hermione go about her day, through it all Harry felt only numb, together they watched as past Harry led Hermione through the corridors with the troll following close behind, Harry wanted to intervene but knew he couldn't. When his past self stopped on the staircase Dumbledore gently reached out and set his hand on Harry's shoulder, watching his best friend die was just as hard the second time but now he felt he understood better.

He watched as past Harry crumpled and past Dumbledore gently picked him up and carried him away, present Dumbledore then led Harry away to his office, entering Harry looked over the office with interest, most notable was the phoenix by the door which flew from its perch to land on Harry's shoulder, absentmindedly stroking it Harry looked at the various enchanted objects on Dumbledore's shelves and smiled when he saw the little mithril sculpture of Dumbledore's head that he had made only three months ago.

When he sat down the phoenix hopped from his shoulder to lap and let Harry resume stroking it, Dumbledore sat down next to Harry and said "That's Fawkes, as you may have guessed he is a phoenix… Is there anything you would like to talk about Harry? Anything at all?"

"Why was there a troll in the school Sir?"

Dumbledore sighed deeply and seemed to age before Harry's eyes "I cannot say for sure, the troll could have simply wandered in although I doubt it, no I suspect the troll was let in Hogwarts deliberately, deep underneath the third floor corridor is an object that Voldemort would do anything to obtain, I set it here as a trap and a test to find out if Voldemort is in fact still alive and what lengths he would go. Never did I think he would dare endanger the students… all he has done is reveal he is here without gaining anything, that is most unusual for him."

"First he takes my parents, now he takes my best friend… I think I've had dreams about him too… What is this object he's after Sir?" Harry had a very dark look as he said this and Dumbledore felt he had made another Tom Riddle, nevertheless he answered the boy who had lost so much despite Dumbledore's promise of safety feeling the boy deserved some answers

"The Philosopher's Stone, in my youth after I finished Hogwarts I trained under a famous alchemist and philosopher named Nicolas Flamel, it is he who made the Philosopher's Stone which holds the power to grant immortality and wealth to all those who possess it, back when Voldemort was a child I think he feared death above all else, even his name means 'to fly from death' and as such it is my belief he would do anything to achieve immortality."

"If the Stone was not here at Hogwarts would he have let the troll in?"

"No… if the Stone was not at Hogwarts Voldemort would have had no reason to let the troll in…"

Harry stood angrily and began pacing the office, his magic swirled around him picking up paper and parchment and throwing it around, Harry seemed to be struggling with some internal argument that Albus dared not interfere with, he knew that if Harry now hated him he would be unable to guide him later in his life yet also realised that ultimately he had indirectly helped lead Miss Granger to her death by taking Voldemort for granted.

"If the Stone was not at Hogwarts would Voldemort have still tried to claim it?"

"On the 31st of July I had Hagrid retrieve the Stone from Gringotts after I received an urgent letter from Nicolas saying that somebody had broken into his house without triggering any wards and the only thing taken was the spare key to the vault. Later that day Gringotts reported that someone broke into that vault without triggering any of their wards either. There is only one wizard I know of who would be capable of doing such a feat and that is Voldemort, if I had not sent Hagrid I fear Voldemort would have gotten the Stone that day as Nicolas was unable to get to Gringotts."

"And Voldemort hated Muggleborns like Hermione didn't he? So if he had gotten the Stone Hermione would have been in danger anyway…"

"I would not say he hates Muggleborns… I would not even say he truly hates Muggles, he certainly fears Muggles and what they are capable of but he only claimed to hate Muggleborns to get his followers on his side, it should be noted that his followers were often the most influential and wealthiest Purebloods, thus allowing him to attempt to control Britain with far less opposition than if he had gotten the Muggleborns on his side. Regardless of his feelings though every witch and wizard in Britain would most certainly be in danger regardless of their blood status."

"Is the Stone safe here?"

"Yes, it is behind fairly rudimentary traps that require a long time to complete so that hopefully I will have enough time to lock down the floor before Voldemort can leave, the Stone itself is behind a very creative ward scheme that Voldemort could never get through. For safety reasons you will have to understand that I won't be revealing what it is."

Harry nodded curtly and sat back down and resumed stroking Fawkes, he mulled over his words for a bit and Dumbledore let him think in silence "I guess Hermione's death was not your fault, the blame lays with the troll and Voldemort for letting it in… but I do want you to know, Professor, that because of the game you and Voldemort are playing my best friend died and I will never forget that."

"It is not often I admit this but I am human and as such make mistakes just like any other, however I am vain enough to admit that when I make mistakes the consequences are often far greater than another's… Ariana being one such mistake... that's why I keep Sherbet Lemons on my desk, it was her favourite sweet and I only learned it after she had died… I like to believe that seeing them every day keeps me from making such mistakes again… evidently I had grown lax..."

"She had just made a ring" Harry said quietly after another moments pause

"Harry?" Dumbledore said curiously raising an eyebrow

"I was teaching her to make mithril and she had finally managed to make a small ring… she was so proud of herself…"

Dumbledore let his thoughts wander, not wanting to think about Ariana or Hermione… he turned his thoughts to rings and remembered that strange ring Tom had gotten in his sixth year and the memory he had much later gotten before Morfin Gaunt's untimely death at Azkaban… that ring had possessed a faint magical call to it… not that dissimilar to the elder wands call now that he thought on it… Sitting up straight Dumbledore realised what he should have known all along, the Lords ring for the house of Gaunt was one of the Hallows, almost defiantly the Resurrection Stone.

* * *

_Well guess who got sick and almost forgot to post a chapter... _

_I feel I need to add that Harry won't be dealing with his grief in a healthy way, he is an eleven year old boy who grew up depending on only himself, he began confiding in Hermione only for her to die meaning that Harry is hurt even more, Dumbledore kind of recognised this, which is why he took Harry back in time, it should be noted that in this Dumbledore doesn't deal with grief very well either in both cannon and this story, as such he doesn't know how to help Harry and is doing what he wanted others to do for him when he was younger._

_Also the first "scene" with Hagrid is sort of a dream sort of a memory and what was said may or may not be considered story cannon and used in future chapters depending on if I remember to use it, chapter title is in no way related to a popular time traveling show episode which dealt with death and loss._


	20. Generation

Harry had been told to take as much free time as he had wished by Dumbledore who had said "Normal procedure for the death of a close friend or relation is to send them home to be with relatives or guardians… but I fear that sending you to the Dursley's would not be a wise decision on my part"

"I would prefer to stay at Hogwarts, sir"

"Very well, I would like you to temporarily take up residence in a spare quarters near my office then, if you ever need to talk my door will always be open for you no matter the time of day or subject."

He had accepted the offer and spent two weeks out of lessons, he had eaten meals with Dumbledore in his office and the two often discussed magical theory, every so often a teacher would join them, the most common teachers were Professors Flitwick and Babbling, on the third day of Harry's time off Flitwick had brought Bathsheda Babbling along with him and told Harry she was the runes professor, Harry had been very interested in how runes worked ever since he had first read up about them and had eagerly struck up a discussion over the use and application of runes with Flitwick and Dumbledore adding their own opinions into the mix too.

Quickly seeing the use of combining runes with his mithril such as the preservation rune he and Hermione had tried so hard to learn about, he had managed to get Professor Babbling to draw out a basic preservation rune under the pretext of him wanting to combine it to a transfigured object which was technically true, Dumbledore had raised his eyebrows at that and smiled slyly, Harry made eye contact with him and felt Dumbledore's magic brush against his mind and deliver just one word "_Cheater_"

Upon returning to school life he became aware of the fact that the other students were extra cautious around him, the story of the troll had spread it seemed and although nobody knew of his use of mithril it had become common knowledge that Harry had sent giant spikes into the troll with enough power to force it backwards, most assumed he had transfigured the rubble on the stairs but some who had grown up with the myth of the boy-who-lived believed Harry had summoned the spikes from thin air using powers he had been taught as a child, Harry thought it ironic that they were closer to the truth than the others. Regardless of what story the students of Hogwarts believed in it was considered fact that Harry had almost killed a fully grown mountain troll in just two hits as a first year, never mind the fact that it had been Dumbledore who had actually finished it.

One of the only students who had not tried to avoid Harry was Ron who had cornered Harry in the library

"Listen mate, I'm really sorry about Hermione, I didn't mean it and I didn't want her to get hurt"

"I'm not your mate _Ron_, if you had not insulted her she would never have been in the toilet crying and the troll would never have killed her. You cost me the best friend I've ever had just because you can't be arsed to put any effort into doing magic and were embarrassed that Hermione actually puts the effort in and got better results as a result. Get lost Ron, you lost the right to be my friend the moment you insulted Hermione"

Harry had left Ron in the library, all that day Ron mulled over what Harry had said and with shame admitted he was right, he vowed to both himself and the memory of Hermione that he would put more effort into his work, his roommates noticed Ron was much more quiet and withdrawn after that fateful Halloween, he put much more work into his studies and it started showing too as his grades had picked up putting him at above average, it was a hollow victory for Ronald as it came at the cost of the best friend he himself had ever gotten and he knew this was what Harry was feeling.

* * *

Another student that had approached Harry was Draco Malfoy, he did not believe the ridiculous rumours that Harry had single-handedly beaten the troll, for reasons best known to himself he had decided to be the one to show the entire school that he was better than the boy-who-lived and deserved the attention Harry received.

"Mourning for your Mudblood friend Potter?" He had stepped in front of Harry and blocked his way in the middle of a moving staircase, the very same staircase that Harry had fought the troll on, Harry glanced at Draco and saw only smug glee, he was going to ignore the boy and moved to go past him when Draco said "I would be glad if it were me, I can't imagine what it must have been like to put up with the Mudblood all day long, even being in the same class had been enough for me to want to kill her myself '_Oh please Professor, Pick me! Pick me!_' it's a shame the troll was killed, I would have had it rewarded." Draco mimicked Hermione jumping up and down with his hand raised, he noticed that Harry had still not drawn his wand and felt braver.

Harry snapped at hearing his friend mocked for her intelligence and turned and thrust his palm at Malfoy willing his magic to push Draco back down the steps, in his anger however he severely overpowered it and rather than just push Draco back a few steps it flung him completely off the staircase, luckily for Malfoy the staircase directly below had moved so that he landed on it just one floor down rather than fall all the way to the ground floor. Students gasped when they saw Malfoy fly off the staircase and parted when Harry continued up the stairs not wishing to be pushed off either.

Internally Harry was panicking and angry and was barely keeping it contained, it was only his conditioning under the Dursleys that kept his emotions from getting loose, on the outside he looked calm and impassionate, as if nearly murdering a fellow student was of no consequence, Malfoy had wanted to prove Harry was weak but had only managed to raise the boy onto a pedestal that none wanted to compete with while lowering his own social position.

Sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk Harry told the headmaster what had happened, sighing Albus sat down heavily, he knew Lucius would soon be out for blood, he also knew he should be punishing Harry but completely understood why he had reacted and that it had been an accident, remembering all the complaints he had received from teachers and students about young Mr Malfoy he realised that he needed to remove the power Lucius possessed quickly, dismissing Harry after giving him detention with Flitwick for a week he sent a letter to Lucius inviting him for a meeting tomorrow.

* * *

Lucius had received his sons the morning of his meeting and was enraged that Dumbledore had not deemed fit to inform him, storming into Dumbledore's office he was caught off guard when he saw Harry Potter sitting beside Dumbledore's desk facing the door, for the boy this probably meant nothing but Lucius recognised it well, the power that came from a large desk was something all purebloods learned at a young age, the person behind the desk held the power in the setting and the one sitting in front of the desk was lesser, to remain standing for either party signified that they did not recognise the power of the other person and was a huge form of disrespect. Sitting beside the desk signified that Dumbledore had claimed the boy as an equal and under his protection, Lucius was stunned that the headmaster would so blatantly show this and sat down in front of the desk before he had really considered what he was doing.

"Lucius, so glad you could join us. As you may be aware the reason I invited you here today is to discuss your son, Mr Malfoy's behaviour has been unacceptable but we both know you won't let him get punished for it so here is what is going to happen, you are going to resign from the board of governors and let the incident yesterday slide."

"And why would I do that?!" Lucius hissed, outraged that Dumbledore would be so blunt and in front of a child was a grave insult to his pride and honour.

"Because Harry here is commonly known as the boy-who-lived and I wonder what Cornelius would think if he heard that your son had been insulting him… particularly since you owe Harry a debt for saving you from the imperious curse when he defeated Voldemort… he might also be interested in the various letters from the board of governors detailing the threats and bribes you have committed while on the board I received last night."

"This is outrageous! My son was sent to the hospital wing after being pushed off the stairs, I will not be threatened by the likes of you Dumbledore!"

Lucius was going to say more but became aware of the magical pressure coming from the aged headmaster, it was suffocating and oppressive, it demanded subservience and respect, it was as if Lucius was back in front of the Dark Lord and his anger fled as he became aware of the danger he was potentially in, on the political field Lucius could have defeated both Dumbledore and the boy-who-lived but here and now in a competition of magic he was pathetically outmatched.

"Quite frankly your son deserved it Lucius, now that he and Harry have settled their differences I see no reason to further punish either, you can either agree and resign from the board honourably or you can resist and lose what power you have left, the ball is in your court, rest assured that if you try anything against Harry I will take it as a personal attack and deal with it accordingly, are we understood?"

Lucius ground his teeth and nodded surly, he recognised that despite the headmasters grandfather attitude he held the power to make Lucius' life very miserable, better yield now and keep some of his power rather than resist and potentially lose it all, he could always work from the shadows to discredit Dumbledore and make him lose his power that way, once the old man had lost his power Lucius would strike and then Dumbledore would regret crossing Lucius Malfoy.

Rising to leave Lucius paused when Harry finally spoke "Mr Malfoy, you might wish to tell your son that I have no quarrel with him, yesterday he insulted my dead best friend and I dealt with it, I now consider it finished, if he leaves me alone I will leave him, he attacks me I will attack back, he helps me I will help him in return."

* * *

Sitting in his workshop a few days later he absentmindedly fiddled with Hermione's mithril ring, after returning to his workshop he was glad to see that the ring had not faded, other magic she had cast had long since collapsed when her magic had faded with her death yet the ring kept producing her magical signature, it was all that was left of her that Harry had and he had worn it ever her since dead in memory of her, the other students dared not ask him why he now wore a ring.

Currently he was waiting for Dumbledore, ever since Harry had returned to school life Dumbledore had made time to sit with Harry every lunch in his workshop and observe him experiment with magic, he claimed it was to ensure Harry was safe but Harry suspected Dumbledore did not want him to be alone, regardless of the reason Harry appreciated the gesture. Tonight he wanted to inscribe the first preservation rune into a small sphere of mithril he had made just for this experiment, he had formed it with the idea of internal decay and as such the mithril glowed brightly with magic as much more was required to keep its density intact. Harry theorised the preservation rune would counter the decay and the excess magic generated that was previously going into fighting the decay would just discharge out into the air to be collected.

When Dumbledore entered he sat down at the table and handed over a rune etching kit and said "Ready when you are Harry" Harry nodded and tried to etch the rune into the mithril only to realise that the chisel would break long before the mithril would get a scratch, feeling foolish Harry formed a mithril chisel identical to the one Dumbledore had made and formed it with the idea of sharp and sculpting, he then reformed the sphere and added the idea of malleable underneath the decaying idea.

With his new tool he once more tried to etch the rune and was thrilled when the new mithril chisel began etching into the mithril easily, he also felt his magic start to swell up within the chisel, he slowly and carefully etched the entire preservation rune into the sphere and when he drew the last line he felt the magic that had welled up within the chisel rush into the rune which glowed green with power, instantly the sphere began to grow in size and Harry stepped back hastily, Dumbledore drew his wand and pointed it at the sphere although he cast no magic, Harry quickly reached out with the chisel and scored a deep line right through the rune, when she had taught Harry a few runes Babbling had drilled it into his head that if a rune ever goes wrong cutting straight through it was the easiest and quickest way to stop it if it went wrong.

The magic in the rune lost its focus and attempted to explode outwards only to be dragged into the sphere which had grown from the size of a tennis ball to the size of a beach ball in the few short seconds the rune had been active, luckily with the rune gone the sphere stopped growing and sat on the table as if it had been formed that big "That went well" Harry said shakily, Dumbledore chuckled and sat down, he slowly released his hold on Hogwarts wards which he was just about to tell to stop all magic within the room and move him and Harry to his office.

"Would you care to explain to me what happened Harry?"

"Well from my observations mithril wants to stay the exact size and density it was when it was formed, I formed this sphere with the idea of internal decay so the magic was constantly trying to repair what was lost to maintain its density, by adding the preservation rune I hoped to counter the decay with the rune and the magic that was going to the decay would go elsewhere, I had hoped it would have gone outwards into the air but I think when I added the idea of it being malleable for the chisel it lost the idea of remaining the same size and as such the excess magic went into the sphere which made it grow."

Harry then placed his hand on the sphere and drew in the magic he had used to first form and then to break the rune, the sphere shrunk accordingly and Harry added "I suspect that the sphere would have grown until the magic it had produced to counter the decay was gone or the rune died, I can't be sure of course and I don't want to risk it trying to find out. On the plus side I now know I can get more magic incredibly easily…"

"Harry?"

"Well… it didn't take that much magic to form the sphere, chisel or the rune and it made the sphere huge, just that small bit I drained I completely restored but absorbing back a bit of the sphere and it's still almost three times its original size… I could have formed it the size of a marble and let it run till it was this size and it would have taken barely no magic…" Harry paused to take a deep breath then expanded further into his explanation

"From what I can tell the mithril produces exactly the same magical signature of the creator, as you know when you transfigure something your magic mixes with the object so that it is no longer pure, from what I can tell that is why that magic can never be reclaimed as magic is meant to be one directional, mithril is different as it is completely pure magic and identical to a magical aura. As it is purely the creators magical signature it can be reabsorbed as if it had never left, but it doesn't just hold magic and wait for it to be called, magic is constantly being used and mithril produces its own magic as if it were a witch or wizard. I can trick the mithril into producing magic and by using runes I can theoretically make that magic go elsewhere, such as expanding, I can then take that magic and shrink the shape down then let it expand again without using any of my own magic."

Dumbledore paused as he realised the gravity of this discovery, it was fact amongst magicals that magic came from inside and went out, Harry had found a way to get an infinite source of magic externally and bring it inside.

"Simply incredible… Harry every so often there comes a witch or wizard that cannot help but reshape the world of magic around them, their mere presence sends ripples across magic, we call these witches and wizards magi invicta, which translates to 'Invincible mage' I was one such wizard and Voldemort was another… and now I believe that already you are another."

Harry was stunned, he had not expected that at all, he had never even heard of magi invicta before, unsure of how to reply Harry just sat there until he thought of something else

"Erm, thank you sir… I've also just thought of something else, if I change malleable to something like transfer or store I could theoretically make even more magic… for example wards require a huge amount of power right? It's why unless they are running on ley lines such as Hogwarts they require constant maintenance… well I have basically made a way to create a completely portable ley line…"

"I think you should keep this discovery very quiet Harry, at the very least until you have graduated from Hogwarts, use this time to refine it and improve then when you leave Hogwarts it would be more than enough to set you up for life, you could get any apprenticeship you want with this so long as you keep it quiet for just these few years."

"I will sir, could you possible make a small power hungry ward on the table? I want to test my theory"

Albus drew up the ward scheme for the ward and with a touch of his wand powered it up

"This will last about five minutes currently" Dumbledore informed him.

As Albus had been drawing up the ward Harry had reconfigured the sphere with the idea of transmitting rather than being malleable and had also formed a wire made of mithril with the idea of flexible, transmission and conductive, he had then formed a small indent in the sphere which he pushed the wire into then formed a small disk on the other end of the wire which he placed exactly where Dumbledore had charged the ward, holding his breath he redrew the preservation rune and instantly the ward shone brightly as it got overpowered, turning to Dumbledore excitedly Harry said "I think that ward is now powered infinitely, in order to break down the ward you need to over power it right? Well so long as this mithril battery was underneath the ward the only way to break down the ward is to unplug the mithril."

"Remarkable" Dumbledore muttered as he experimented with the ward, he realised the Harry was correct, or mostly correct, the only reasons wards couldn't be relied solely upon was because they could be overpowered if the attacker was more powerful than the person who charged the wards, this ward was basically continuously charged meaning that an attacker would drain their own magical supply trying to overcome it, however Albus suspected that ward could potentially be beaten if the transfer speed was overcome by multiple high power wizards attacking the ward at simultaneously, he told Harry of this flaw, Harry grinned and formed another wire which he also plugged into the ward scheme and sphere and although the ward did not glow any brighter it was clear to Albus that the transfer speed of the magic had doubled, he realised Harry could have just placed the entire sphere on top of the ward charge point and not worry about the transfer speed at all.

"Harry I have a proposition for you, continue working on this and ensure there are no weak points and once you have proven that to me that you have met my requirements I would like for you to install this on the Hogwarts ward anchor, some wards around Hogwarts have had to suffer in order to maintain other more important wards as although ley lines are an infinite source of magic they have a limit on how much can be drawn, as you may or may not know Hogwarts has war wards that require a huge quantity of magic and I fear that under the current ward scheme the war wards would be unable to operate at full capacity while also keeping up the current wards, with this mithril generator the current war wards would not only be able to operate at full power but I would also be able to add and edit other wards without fearing for the safety of the school… one such ward that seems to have been neglected is the beast ward as I should have been alerted the moment a creature the size and power of a troll got anywhere near the castle. In return for this I will sponsor you through a charms and runes mastery should you wish it as well as offer an apprenticeship under either myself or someone of your choosing."

"I will gladly do that professor!" Harry said excitedly, he was mournful he had not thought of it before Halloween as if the wards had been more powerful the troll could never have gotten inside, yet at least he had managed to get it to work so other, future students would never have to be endangered again

"One requirement for this is that you bring Bathsheda Babbling into your confidence, this is because as we saw today your experiment could have gone disastrously wrong and although you handled it mavously next time you may not be able to handle it and I cannot be present at all times, another reason is that Bathsheda is by far superior when it comes to runes. Due to the nature of this project I will place her under a magical oath to not reveal what you two would be working on so it will still be your secret."

"That would be great sir, thank you"

Dumbledore smiled amiably then tried to bring down the temporary ward scheme so he could go, he frowned when it resisted his efforts and he realised that to bring down a ward scheme required draining it of power the same as breaking it down, for the ward holder that was normally no problem as even if the holder was not the charger the runes responded to the holder as if they were the charger, Hogwarts wards had an entire identification section that recognised the current headmaster of Hogwarts as the ward holder. The problem now was that by charging this ward with the mithril's magic which was identical to Harry's own magical signature the magic had overpowered Dumbledore's claim over the ward and made Harry the ward holder.

"I appear to have an issue Harry, by charging and overpowering the ward with your own magic through the mithril I seem to have lost claim over the ward… this will also have to be fixed or overcome before adding it to the Hogwarts wards as it would mean even though I am Headmaster you would have a greater claim over the wards, that would also mean even after several centuries after you are dead the ward would still recognise you as the greater owner and as the magic would still be fresh from the mithril I suspect it would go into a sort of limbo as it would need you to depower the ward to let another take ownership and obviously you could not do that if you are not alive…

Dumbledore realised that Harry could use this to take over and control another ward from the outside, almost every ward available takes the magic from an attacking spell and feeds it to the charge point as power for the ward, if a ward scheme does not have a ley line built in then a witch or wizard could charge the ward from the outside and get control over the ward that way… this often left them extremely weak and vulnerable so it was almost never done but now Harry had a way to do it with 'free' magic…

Harry disconnected the mithril wires from the ward and scored the preservation rune off as magic had started to pool at the end of the wires and he did not want to find out what happens if mithril explodes from too much magic, mulling over Dumbledore's words he tried to think of a way to prevent it, at first he thought he could teach Dumbledore to make the mithril battery but realised that only moved the problem as Dumbledore could die before passing on ownership and he would have to teach his successor how to do it which carried the same issue.

* * *

Dumbledore sat in his office sucking on a sherbet lemon thinking about Harry, he knew now the boy was undeniably destined for greatness beyond anything he had ever personally achieved and also suspected that the boy had made a form of immortality equal to that of the Philosophers Stone, having studied under Flamel he had gotten the chance to study the Stone and had realised the stone took the magic from the user and made the elixir of life with the user's magic as the primary ingredient, as such each elixir only worked for the brewer, an elixir made for Nicolas would not work for Perenelle.

Few knew that witches and wizards aged differently to their muggle counterparts, it was one of the reasons they were considered another species as Muggles aged and died as their cells decayed, magicals aged and died as their _magic_ decayed… now that Harry had made a way to produce an exact replica of his magic even greater than that made by the Philosopher's Stone, Harry was now effectively immune to aging, after spending so much of his childhood searching for ways to undo death Dumbledore knew how bad it could be to outlive everyone you care for.

* * *

_This is primarily fallout over Halloween, I find it funny that Mithril will/is a huge part of this story when I originally came up with it on a whim._

_Two related stories are 'The Mind Arts' by Wu Gang and '__Harry Potter and the Rune Stone Path' by Temporal Knight which are two of my favourite stories and inspired a lot of this chapter _


	21. Power of Wards

"Do you, Bathsheda Sandra Babbling promise to keep Harry Potter's secrets pertaining to his extracurricular activities on the condition that he seek your advice before any major experiment for any of said extracurricular activities?"

"I do"

"And do you, Harry James Potter promise to listen to and respect Bathsheda Babbling's advice on the condition that she listen to you as if your words where mine with all the power that entails?"

"I do"

"Then I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore observe this oath magically binding and active for as long as the conditions may hold, so mote it be"

It had taken a long time to decide on a contract that Dumbledore, Harry and Bethesda were happy with, they had elected to go with a conditional oath instead of an unbreakable or magically binding oath, with an unbreakable oath there could be no misdirection as every party had to be fully aware of what they were agreeing to, as such Harry would have needed to reveal his mithril and ideas to Bathsheda before she agreed which Dumbledore thought unwise. His reasoning was that even if she agreed to take the oath someone proficient in legilimency could pick out the secret from before she had agreed to keep. Another downside to the unbreakable oath was that the oath keeper had to stay alive as the magic lived within them for the oath to remain binding.

Dumbledore did not want to trust in surviving all seven years Harry would be at Hogwarts and any time spent afterwards, of course he hoped he would live to see Harry graduate but knew he was slowing and did not want to needlessly put Harry at risk after Harry having to suffer his mistakes for ten years.

A magical oath was almost immediately disregarded as it gave no warnings when either party got close to breaking the oath, if Bathsheda had gotten close to revealing the secret even accidentally the only time she would become aware would be when her magic got stripped away, with either of the other two oaths magical warnings were given before the punishment. Another reason to not take a magical oath was that it did not protect the mind so Harry would have had to trust his secrets on her mental shields.

A conditional oath was the most difficult to use as for each term a participant agreed too there had to be a term of equal power that the other participant had to agree with. This limited how much could be within the oath as the oath could become unbalanced and lose its power.

Theoretically you could make a magical or an unbreakable oath with as many terms as needed due to the lack of balancing, there was once an unbreakable oath between two magical world leaders that took over two hours to read through, however the benefit to a conditional oath over the other two options was that a participant did not have to actually understand what they were agreeing. Even if a legilimencer broke Bathsheda's mind apart they would never be able to learn of Harry's secrets, as far as protections go it was complete overkill because Harry himself had no mental protections and did not have the oath protecting him.

The final reason they chose on a conditional oath was that it was impossible to break, the magic of the oath lived within the participants and no matter how much they tried to break a conditional clause the magic would stop them before they got close.

Dumbledore had explained it to Harry by gently tipping two wooden boards until they used each other to hold themselves up, by leaning on the other board you stopped yourself falling, but as the other board was also doing the same neither could fall while the other stood, the only way one could fall was if the other board was removed, signifying death, if Bathsheda died Harry would have no reason to go to her for help, if Harry died Bathsheda would have no reason to reveal or hold his secrets.

Bathsheda had been reluctant to agree to Harry holding the same verbal power of Dumbledore but Dumbledore pointed out that was just an extent of secrecy as the contract of school professor Bathsheda was magically bound to not reveal any of Dumbledore's secrets that she happened to learn while being employed by him, now the magical bind counted Harry as equal to her employer on top of the far more powerful conditional oath of secrecy.

After the oath had been drawn and agreed too Harry showed Bathsheda what he had discovered with his mithril. She had assumed it had to be something huge as Dumbledore had personally gone to her asking her to help Harry, the fact he wanted her to take an oath was just more evidence to support her idea.

It was not all that unusual for a teacher to take an oath to keep a student's secret for an extracurricular project and when Bathsheda had been a student she had gotten an oath from her own runes professor, the project they worked on together had gotten her the mastery she had wanted and allowed her to take over from her mentor when he had retired.

She instantly began coming up with potential uses of mithril and quickly realised she could think up uses for mithril forever and not reach a limit, it was no wonder that each goblin made item was considered unique, the creator only had to think about what they wanted and it could be made.

She also saw potential in expanding her own personal projects, as she thought over her ideas she spoke to Harry, neither the student or teacher noticed when Dumbledore quietly left, she had been planning a giant ward structure that would use modules rather than full sections.

Currently a ward structure would be unique to each area, even if two warded areas had the same ward builder they would come out subtly different, this made it extremely difficult for a standard for wards to be established as the ward builder could only guess at how much the ward could take based on previous wards, if they tested their wards to breaking point then they would have to be rebuilt meaning they would have a different breaking point.

By modulating the wards each module could be guaranteed to be the same as another, the subtle differences would still be present for each module but the modules would interact with each other in a standard fashion, if somebody wanted a ward array that stopped apparition, alerted the owner to people entering and exiting and be unplottable they currently had to hire a single ward master who would charge an extremely high price.

Due to this the warding profession consisted of either high quality, high price masters or poor quality, low price apprentices, with modules a team of workers could be taught how to install the modules into a central matrix, even if the worker knew nothing about wards they could still follow the instruction and set up a high quality ward structure for a significantly lower price when compared to a ward master.

Bathsheda had come across the problem of tying to power the ward, each module required the power of a full ward and then additional power to make two modules work together, for each module in the scheme the amount of power required expanded exponentially.

For somewhere like Hogwarts with access to leylines it might have been worth it but for a private home without such luxuries the additional power requirement meant that modules would be extremely easy to overpower and bypass, now however with the use of a mithril reactor, power was no longer an issue and allowed for more powerful modules, Bathsheda decided that the first issue to fix is the magical signature.

"Why does it have to be your magical signature Harry?"  
"Because I'm the one who made it?"

"Yes but once it's formed, theoretically it could run with anybodies signature right?"

"Well yes, but once it's formed its flooded with my signature and it generates only my signature"

"What if… what if you formed it with the idea of changeability"

Harry formed a mithril cube with that idea and presented it to her, she drew her wand and summoned her magical signature to her wand tip, she then pressed it to the cube and noted the cube absorbed it, she then looked into the magic and laughed delightedly when she saw rather than Harry's lime green magic it had become her light purple, she then asked Harry to add his signature back into the cube. When he pressed his finger to the cube she saw the green spread over the purple and take over control.

Drawing a small ward scheme she asked Harry to make a generator similar to what he made with Dumbledore, she then powered the ward up with the mithril charging pad rather than manually charge it, she nodded when the ward activated normally as if it had been powered up by a human.

She then picked up the cube and pushed her magic into it until it was her purple, she then tapped it against the glowing sphere and was disappointed when nothing happened, she asked Harry to make a flat surface on the sphere and reform it with the idea of acceptance, once done she tapped the cube back against the sphere and this time the purple spread from the cube to the sphere.

The generator was now making purple magic, however the magic with the generator refused to move into the wires, shutting off the generator she then asked Harry to also reform the wires and pad with the idea of subservience and then add the idea of master to the generator, she noted that the wires and pad had become purple instantly and asked Harry to take the cube and make it his green signature and tap it against the sphere.

The green spread into the sphere and did not seem to move into the wires, but the moment all the purple in the generator had been consumed the wires and pad flashed and became Harry's green allowing the magic to flow through them and into the ward, the ward itself had briefly flickered momentarily when the generator had been mostly purple while the wires were still green but that was to be expected as the power temporarily shut off.

Excitedly Bathsheda explained to a bemused Harry what had happened "The cube takes the magical signature of the holder and stores it, when it comes in contact with the sphere it transfers over into the generator due to the acceptance ideology, once the sphere becomes attuned to that signature it begins making magic with that signature as if it had been made by that person. Once it is fully one signature it passes it to the wires over the mastery and subservient ideologies, as the wires are now the exact same signature as the sphere the magic can pass through like normal."

She took a deep breath before continuing "This means that even if the current owner dies before they can pass ownership onto another the new owner just has to get ahold of this cube in order to become the new owner of the ward structure, if they do not have the cube then the generator and ward are safe from interference. That's why I wanted it to be on the separate cube rather than go directly into the generator so the owner could place the cube into something like a Gringotts vault and even if someone manages to break into their house and can get to the ward anchor they cannot become the master over the ward. I feel like we should also come up with a way to uniquely identify each mithril generator so that only one key can only 'unlock' its corresponding generator, otherwise someone could just buy a key and use it to unlock someone else's generator."

Harry jumped in, understanding dawning within him "I think I could also make the key forget the signature after a set amount of time so it can't be taken and used without the owner's permission… we could also put the entire ward scheme and generator inside a mithril shield so that only the owner can enter and change the wards. We could even make the entire shield the generator with the wires and ward stone inside!"

"Would the words work inside the mithril dome though?" Bathsheda asked cautiously

"I see no reason why they wouldn't… and even if they did I could make it so that it lets magic pass from the inside out but stop magic going from the outside in"

"Well there is an easy way to find out, let's try it"

Harry formed a hollow sphere big enough to completely enclose the ward stone and generator with more than enough room to spare, he felt extremely weak after it was complete but simply reached for the generator and redrew the rune after changing the ideology from transfer and back to growing, he then drew in the magic as fast as the sphere could grow, once he felt replenished he scored a deep line through the rune and changed the ideology back to transmit magic.

"We need to find a quicker way of cutting off the rune… I don't suppose there is a conditional rune that could be combined with the preservation one so that it is only active when we want it to be?"

"As a matter of fact there is… it is really impressive that you can form something that huge and then basically recharge you magic instantly… your going to be extremely powerful when you get older Harry"

Harry grinned, accepting the praise and turned back to the generator, specifically the preservation rune, he pushed his magic into the mithril and made a pit within the generator, he then formed a small mithril button that would give off a small electric current when triggered.

He made the rune move into the area by moving the mithril underneath the rune and then asked Bathsheda to draw the conditional rune with the trigger being electricity, once she had drawn it and connected it to the preservation rune he completed the preservation rune, as he hoped it did not activate.

He slotted the mithril button into the pit so that it both covered and touched the runes preventing them from being changed or seen, he gave the entire generator the ideology of not conducting electricity then pressed the button, instantly the generator started up and pressing the button again turned it off.

With that done he moved the generator as close to the ward stone as he could and reformed the charge pad with the ideology of sticking, he then placed the mithril shield over the lot.

He added a small hole into the shield where the generator was and adjusted it so that the button and signature plate where flush with the shield, pushing the button made the ward activate, clearly visible on top of the mithril shield, as expected pressing the button again deactivated the ward.

Using the cube Bathsheda could still claim ownership of the generator and thus ward but Harry felt it made the entire generator safer and harder to break. Adding a plate to the shield itself Harry formed it with a conditional ideology within it inspired by Bathsheda's conditional rune.

The condition was that if a magical signature was placed against it that was identical to the magical signature of the generator then it would activate a reforming ideology that would make a giant hole appear in the side, by tapping the cube key against the signature plate on the shield it opened the hole allowing the ward to be edited, tapping the key again made the shield reform.

* * *

"What exactly can you do with your raw magic Harry?" Bathsheda asked one evening

"What do you mean?"

Harry and Bathsheda where lounging on his sofa after working on their 'ward generator'

"Well, I know what you can do with mithril in its solid form, but what about when it's still in its raw form?"

"I haven't messed with the raw mithril as it once burned a hole into my aunt's carpet when I first discovered it…" Harry said slowly, he pulled forth his magic and shaped it to a blade, after using his mithril so much he barely had to think about what he wanted.

He felt it begin to solidify and began feeding it a constant stream of magic to keep it in its raw form, it took more magic than he expected and he was forced to let it drop

"Damn, it seems to take more magic to maintain the longer I hold it, could you transfigure something to cut please Bathsheda?"

Picking up the blade he returned it to its raw form and sliced it through the wooden block Bathsheda had summoned, it passed through the wood as if it was simply not there, where the blade had passed through the wood had become scorched as if badly burnt.

He had also noticed that when the mithril blade touched the wood it had become harder to maintain as if the magic was draining faster as it passed through the wood, possibly indicating the magic was being absorbed by the wood.

"Try something harder like rock now?"

The blade passed through rock, metal and plastic with no resistance, it had even shattered the magical shield Bathsheda had summoned as a joke, the only problem was breaking the shield drained Harry faster than anything else and he had to wait for his magic to recharge before he could try it again.

Luckily for him he had been sitting on a sofa made entirely of mithril that had been formed to be soft and yielding, it had been easy to turn it into a magical generator and get his magic back.

Thinking of generators Harry formed a cylinder with the basic generator properties and added the activation button they had developed for the wards generator, rather than plug the wires into a ward scheme however he plugged it into the blade itself and then reformed it to remain the exact same size and density. When he pressed the button the blade began glowing as the magic collected with nowhere to go until eventually the mithril melted into pure magic, holding it by the generator he found he could use it like a long knife or short sword.

Remembering an old show he had once seen Dudley watch he deactivated the generator and shrunk the blade to be tiny, then added the ideology to grow to a specific size and width and then stop along with being entirely weightless, he then added a casing around the generator, wires and what was left of the blade and made it more comfortable to hold.

He then pressed the button, immediately the blade expanded from barely visible to about three feet in length and an inch wide, it felt no heavier and was easy to wield, it still cut through objects as if they were not there, although when he shattered through the shield the blade had flickered a few times and Harry assumed he had managed to use up the magic quicker than the generator could supply it.

Turning to a scrap piece of mithril lying in the workshop Harry touched his magical saber to it, sparks flew in all directions until the mithril was sucked into the blade of raw magic, he asked Bathsheda to turn on the ward scheme and instructed her to take ownership of it, he then touched the blade of magic to the ward and winced as the ward and saber flashed brightly.

Both died at simultaneously, his saber quickly regained its form as the magic began returning but the ward scheme remained down, deactivating the saber he and Bathsheda opened the shield to find that the ward scheme itself had been completely obliterated.

"I suspect the two infinite sources of magic fought each other and both lost at the same time causing the magic to backfire, the mithril directed the magic to become light which was the flash we saw, the ward itself had to direct the magic through the ward scheme trying to feed it back into the generator which was still trying to push magic into the ward, the result was a feedback loop which overloaded and fried the runes. I have never seen a ward scheme react so violently before and I must congratulate you not only coming up with a ward generator that we believed completely unbeatable but also managing to then find a way to beat it so thoroughly it will be extremely difficult to fix… I wonder what it does to a normal ward?"

She set up a powerful ward scheme and powered it manually, she indicated for Harry to test it while she hide behind the mithril sofa, thrilled by his mentors confidence, Harry tentatively powered the blade and touched the ward with it. He was stunned when the ward seemed to rip apart, starting out from where he touched the ward with the saber then expanding outwards.

The saber hadn't even flickered once, looking at the runes he grimaced at the smoke coming off the stone Bathsheda had etched the runes into, it had several cracks running down it and now possessed a giant scorch mark in the exact shape of the runes that had been etched into it, Bathsheda poked her head out from behind the sofa and successfully summed up Harry's thoughts "Bloody hell"

* * *

_When I first wrote this chapter the time was almost one in the morning by the time I stopped, I just could not stop writing, I hope it is clear that I much prefer writing about the "science" of magic compared to building such trivial things as character and plot._

_On a more recent note last chapter it got pointed out I tend to have extremely long paragraphs so I kept reminding myself to keep them short and punctuated, so hopefully it is easier to read now, eventually I will go over previous chapters and fix the paragraphs there too although that will take time and is not a big priority currently._

_Oh and in case anyone wants to complain about Harry having infinite magic it will be explained in a future chapter but briefly, Harry's magic is like lightning, his body is like a tree in a thunderstorm, and the ground is his target, to get to the ground the lightning has to pass through the tree first, often the tree gets scorched in the process. Just because Harry has access to infinite magic does not mean he can actually safety wield it._


	22. Good Tidings

The months passed in a blur for Harry, he never forgot Hermione but the numbness that had consumed him since her passing had faded somewhat, working with Bathsheda helped as the young professor reminded him of Hermione in both her intelligence and passion for knowledge, Christmas was fast approaching, with Hermione gone, Ron excluded and Neville avoiding him Harry mostly avoided the rumours that circulated the school about him, Bathsheda made sure he returned to his dormitory whenever they worked late into the night as she feared Harry would lose all contact with the other students if he slept in his workshop.

Classes had become something of a joke for Harry and he only went to lessons that interested him, Minerva only saw Harry when she was teaching theory, any lesson she taught the practice Harry would cast the transfiguration completely wordlessly without his wand and place it on her desk before walking out, Charms was similar except Flitwick would ask Harry to demonstrate the charm and any alteration with it, Harry would then be allowed to leave, Harry went to every potions and herbology lesson and tried to get to every astrology lesson although without Hermione keeping him on track he often forget he had a lesson to attend, he felt like with Hermione he had subconsciously limited himself and hidden just how far ahead he was to appease Hermione, now she was gone he did not hold back and his reputation grew, first the students whispered about his defeat of the troll, many had scoffed and claimed it to be lies, then they had talked about Malfoy's public defeat and lack of punishments, then some reported Lucius had stormed into the headmasters office and left, Harry Potter had then followed him out and the next day it became public knowledge that Lucius Malfoy had resigned from the board of governors.

* * *

As Harry's legend grew, Draco Malfoy's reputation suffered greatly after that fateful Halloween, first he had been publicly humiliated and everyone had decided he was weak and no longer cowered in fear when he mocked them, Crabbe and Goyle had left him to look for a stronger leader and he had realised just how disliked he had made himself, then his father had lost his power over the board of governors and students that had previously avoided Malfoy in fear of being expelled now took glee in bullying Malfoy wherever they could get away with it, his father complained and Dumbledore had tried to get the bullying to stop but the students largely ignored him.

As children reported to their parents that Draco was a pushover, the parents in turn feared Lucius less, almost overnight the social power Lucius held evaporated and even Cornelius did not want to be seen with Lucius as allegation of the man got brought to the surface, he was able to refute each and every claim and managed to avoid azkaban but it became socially taboo to be seen dealing with him, forced with adapting or losing what was left of his family's money Lucius was forced to turn to the muggle world where none knew his name. Lucius got his main source of material from his acromantula farm which produced high quantities of spider silk, to his surprise he found great profit dealing with the Muggles as for everyone one wizard that could afford his silk there was almost a hundred Muggles.

The silk itself was almost identical to normal spider silk except one acromantula produced more silk in one day than a nest of muggle spiders produced in a year, the Malfoy vaults grew much higher than they had even before the blood war Voldemort had started, forced to trade with Muggles and socially exiled from Pureblood society Lucius realised that the ideals he had held dear to him since his school days over his own superiority was flawed, he swore to himself he would not let himself fade from magical society, with his new influx of wealth the purebloods would soon forget his loss of status and welcome him back with arms wide, then he would strike to get revenge… right after he got revenge on Dumbledore of course.

* * *

Harry was working on his flask once more, it was one of the only projects he had kept hidden from Bathsheda as he wanted it to be a surprise for Christmas, he had decided that just having a bottomless unbreakable flask wasn't good enough as many such flasks were available to buy for the right price, he decided what would set his flasks apart would be the ability to summon there from anywhere, this is what had led him to forming a ring with the mastery over the flask ideology alongside cushioning, weightlessness and resizing, it was tuned to just his flask and he had added the ideology of being subservient to just his ring, he then added the ideology of no fixed location to his flask and metaphysical, he then added the ideology physically anchored, pull forth and then realisation conditioned to trigger when the flask is nearby and targeting the flask rather than the ring.

He hoped that by giving the flask a metaphysical idea it would not really exist in the physical world but when summoned by the pull forth ideology on the ring it would pull the flask to exactly where the ring is which would trigger the realisation condition making the flask physical allowing the user to drink, then hopefully either dropping the flask or letting the power leave the ring would return the flask to metaphysical space.

Taking a deep breath Harry let the flask reform and nodded when it faded from sight, reaching out he could not feel it so it wasn't invisible, putting on the ring he sent a burst of magic through it triggering it, he felt something heavy collide with his hand and when he looked down he saw that the flask was now stuck to his ring, opening the flask he grinned when he saw the water inside, taking a drink he resealed the flask and let the power leave the ring, the flask dropped and faded from view, getting up Harry left his workshop and sealed the door, activating the ring the flask reappeared in his hand almost instantly, dropping it he ran to his common room and successfully summoned it again, running back to the workshop Harry came to a stop as he realised he had just made a valid form of teleportation.

* * *

Awakening on Christmas day Harry rose slowly, he was the only Ravenclaw first year boy to stay over the holiday so he had the dormitory to himself, with a start, he realised that the pile of presents at the foot of his beds must be his, getting down he read the tags and realised he had gotten presents from Ron, Bathsheda, Hagrid, Mrs Weasley, 'Wulfric' and two unnamed Harry suspected were also from Dumbledore.

Ron's present was a photo of Harry and Hermione sitting together and laughing in the library, he had also included a card "Merry Christmas Harry, Since Halloween I have realised I was a huge prat, I have tried to make myself better, I hope you are doing well -Ronald Weasley"

Bathsheda had given Harry a professional rune etching kit with a note saying he might enjoy trying to replicate the enchantments on them

Hagrid had given him a hand made flute that sounded like a bird call when blown, few knew that Harry was quite good at music and he had once told Hagrid and Hermione this, clearly Hagrid had not forgotten and Harry felt a swell of joy that Hagrid had remembered what he had said.

Mrs Weasley had sent him a hand knitted jumper with a large H in blue and black, she also included a hamper of homemade treats.

Wulfric had sent a sculpture of Harry's face that if the note was to be trusted would act as a light source that only he would be able to see, it had been made with alchemy and enchantments both of which were areas of magic Harry had not experimented with yet.

The first unnamed present was a book called "_Occluding the mind: An advanced study_" and the note included simply said "You may find this book interesting, master it and I may consider tutoring you in magic dark and obscure - SP" the writing was different to anything he had seen before and the slight magical signature was masked

Putting it aside he opened the second unnamed present, when he opened it a cloak spilled out and pooled on the floor, the note said "Your father left this in my possession when he died, it now belongs to you, use it well"

Harry stroked the cloak, it was silky and soft… his father's cloak, wanting to be close to something belonging to his father he threw it over himself, he felt a slight chill run down his spine similar to the disillusionment charm, he wanted to see what he looked like in the cloak, he looked in the mirror and saw his hair looked as messy as ever and he patted it down out of habit, when he looked down however he was shocked to see his body was missing.

Harry realised the cloak must be an invisibility cloak and when he took the cloak off and he felt the chill again, but this time is was running up his spine rather than down and as the chill rose his body and cloak became visible, he put the cloak back on and this time checked to see at what point he became invisible, he found so long as he kept the sides of the cloak apart he remained visible and it was only when he started pulling them together did his body fade from view.

Wanting to be as close as possible to his father he chose to keep this invisibility cloak on underneath his school robes and went down to dinner, upon reaching the great hall he noticed that the two of the four house tables had been combined to make the table wider and all the students and teachers remaining at Hogwarts over the holidays were sat around it, he noticed that Bathsheda had left a seat empty next to her and sat down in it, Dumbledore smiled at him from across the table and although he got a few looks from the students he ignored them.

That Christmas was one of the best Harry had ever had, leaving the great hall he ignored Ron and Draco arguing in the hall, Draco had needed to stay at Hogwarts as his parents did not have the time to look after him as both had needed to work to keep their fortune, Ron had stayed because his parents had gone to Romania, Harry didn't know why they were arguing this time but he also did not care, that was until they both shot jinxes at each other which collided in midair and flew in random directions, Ron's struck Harry's exposed back and Harry turned wand drawn

"I'm so sorry Harry! It was meant for Malfoy"

"If you can't get your jinxes to go where you want them too you shouldn't be firing them" Harry said coldly.

When he reached his workshop he removed his school cloak and realised the spell had burned a small hole right through but seemed to stop when it hit his father cloak, confused Harry shot a weak jinx at the corner only for the cloak to absorb the spell. Harry and Bathsheda experimented with the cloak for many hours and finally concluded that the cloak seemed to be completely invulnerable to damage, both physical and magical.

Harry hadn't wanted to try his saber on it but suspected the saber would be drained like when he stabbed his ward generator.

"This is an exceptionally powerful object to give as a Christmas present" Bathsheda murmured

"Well belonged to my father apparently, it just took ten years to get to me"

"That raises the question of how your father got it… The Potters were never the most well known family and if this was a family heirloom you would have thought it would be well known, such as Ravenclaw's diadem or even the Black's mirror"

"What? Black as in Sirius Black?"

"Yes exactly like him, the Black family was famed to have had a mirror which reflected wherever the wielder wanted to see, sort of like a really powerful scriers bowl, there have been a few tries to replicate it, the mirror of Erised by Lana Grimhilde, _Der Spiegel von Immanuel_ by Immanuel Kant or even the _Locke Speculum_ by John Locke were all rumoured to be based on the Toujours pur réflexion which is the fabled name of the Black's mirror"

"You know a lot about mirrors huh?"

"For my ancient runes NEWT project I had to study how mirrors had been enchanted over magical history and those four and the most well known, for example Immanuel's mirror was able to transport the user wherever a reflection existed, however you had to know there was a reflection to get there."

"I wonder if I could replicate that with mithril?"

"It's worth a shot"

* * *

_John Locke was a famous English philosopher in the 17th century, Immanuel Kant was a famous German philosopher in the 18th century, the mirror of Erised is most likely based on the witch's mirror in Snow White who's name is Grimhilda and the actress in Once Upon a Time who plays the witch is called Lana._

_Also to make up for the lack of an chapter yesterday I have another story suggestion, 'Harry Potter and the Elemental's Power' by Sage Ra, I personally am really enjoying reading it._


	23. Desire

Harry crept through Hogwarts under his cloak, he had applied his notice-me-nots to himself before applying the cloak and had long ago placed a layer of mithril under his shoes that completely stopped sound being made. The mithril forced a thin layer of air between Harry's feet and the ground so that Harry never physically made contact with the ground, it made him completely untraceable, he hoped.

He entered the library which was conveniently unlocked and stepped into the restricted section, he had already searched the rest of the library ever since Halloween and was disappointed to find that none of the books held what he was looking for. He quickly found a book that looked promising, the title was "_Death and the Undying" _he skimmed through the book and with disappointed realised it was only about making yourself immortal.

Replacing the book he found another, this one was about how to raise the dead as minions or puppets, again and again he picked out books on death and none gave any help on how to bring back the dead exactly as they were when they were alive.

Seeing a speck of magic he turned and saw nothing out of the usual, experimentally he extended his magic before him sensing that something was before him, his magic reported there was a dead spot that it could not be entered, he figured that dead spot would be an advanced invisibility spell.

"Wulfric?" He said, deepening his voice and hoping he was correct and it was indeed Dumbledore before him and not someone or something less kind.

"Harry" The voice replied, both remained invisible and neither spoke again, Harry kept looking through books on the dead and Albus watched him sadly. He did not stop Harry search as he clearly remembered that after his mother's and sister's deaths he had searched for ways to undo death tirelessly. He sighed deeply and carefully floated a his personal copy of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" over to Harry.

The boy took the book silently and read through it, he was going to ask the headmaster why he had given it to him only to realise the magical dead spot had gone. Sitting down Harry read the stories and realised they were children's stories, the pages on these sections seemed almost untouched and pristine.

The last story was the only evidence that this story had been read at all, "Tales of the brothers Three", around the main story where notes, dates and even locations that had been neatly written in the margins, some of the writing looked old and returning to the very first page Harry saw the book had been written and signed 1897 with a short message from the author

"_To Albus, the truth is out there, the original book is a collection of stories I have found and updated to fit with a more modern audience, as per your request this book includes the original tales as I first originally heard them. Use It Well - Robert Galbraith_"

Harry sat and read the short story, it appeared to just be a children's story like the others yet clearly it meant something important if Dumbledore himself had specifically requested the book with an unedited version, quickly searching the library he found a more recent version of the Beedle the Bard book and compared the two versions, this one called the final story "The tale of the three brothers".

At first glance there was no difference between the two stories aside from the words sounding older in the original, however on a closer inspection Harry finally found a difference, in the original version Dumbledore had given him it said the brothers asked Death for objects _of_ death while the newer version had the brothers asking for objects to _defy_ death. It seemed like a small change and both ended up with Death presenting the brothers with a wand, a stone and a cloak, Harry noticed Dumbledore had added an annotation right next to the line where the brothers received the items "The brothers did not thwart death", the word thwart had been underlined many times.

He spent many weeks obsessing over the two books, every time he read them and Dumbledore's cryptic notes he felt he was getting closer to understanding, the only other key difference he had found was the three brothers being named in the original. Antioch took the wand, Cadmus took the stone and Ignotus took the cloak, as was becoming common Dumbledore had added notes yet they made no sense, it was as if Harry was only reading half the note "Daughter took surname Grindel" but the question was whose daughter.

Another note further on in the book Dumbledore had written "Antioch had no sons" one night a very tired Harry grew angry at the vague and pointless notes and tried to clean away a scribble that covered the final word in the second to last note "Walter Prince and Hugh de Topfer, later translates to Hugh the -" it seemed younger Dumbledore had been displeased to find out what Topfer translated to, Harry held his hand over the book and tried to clear the ink from the book so he could read it clearly, he felt the book resist him however and rather than fade more words appeared.

Confused Harry scanned the book for magic, which he realised as it belonged to Dumbledore he should have done that from the start, now that he looked he realised the book was saturated with magic and every page seemed to be enchanted, he sent out a magical probe that Bathsheda had taught him, the book resisted but Harry forced it forward. he had to pull some magic from the mithril band he had started keeping on his forearm but finally broke through the barrier on the book.

Instantly the handwritten notes rearranged themselves and some words were added that weren't present before, Harry read the new message eagerly "Antioch had no son, but his daughter took the surname Grindel, name would be passed down till it became Grindelwald, Cadmus had a son, history tells us this. He disappears from history at the same time the family Gauntus appears, Slytherin related to Gauntus which had nearly died out until it became the Gaunt family, it was said after he left Hogwarts he searched for a ring to call forth the dead that was kept from him despite his birthright. Ignotus had many children, some illegitimate, all lines died out save two, Walter Prince and Hugh de Topfer, later translated to Hugh the Potter, both names fade into obscurity, Professor Sierra Potter most likely related."

Harry felt a weight drop in his stomach after reading that, he recognised the names Grindelwald and Slytherin, two of the most famous dark lords to exist but to see his own name, Potter, next to the names of such famous wizards not once but twice was disconcerting.

Harry started piecing together the puzzle that Dumbledore had left for him, Dumbledore had revealed he lost his sister around Harry's own age, most people said that Dumbledore was over a hundred years old and as the book was signed to Dumbledore 1897, almost a century ago, Harry suspected that this was shortly after his sister's death.

The battle between Grindelwald and Dumbledore was legendary and it was well known that Grindelwald craved magical objects, it was because of him that family heirlooms that had been closely guarded secrets before the war had been leaked to the general public, that had angered both the light and dark families who joined arms to fight Grindelwald.

Was it too much of a stretch to say that the three objects of Death were real? If only he had family alive so that he could ask if they knew of the Cloak that had apparently been passed down father to son… a cloak such as the one his father had passed on to him, the very cloak he now wore, a cloak that absorbed magic in a way he had only ever seen with his own mithril, even the material of the cloak was slightly metallic looking.

If his Cloak were made of mithril, or something incredibly similar, it would explain why it still worked flawlessly if it had been used by his father when he was in school, it would even explain why it absorbed magic and according to magic his cloak did not exist. He and Bathsheda had cast every identification spell they knew and every last one of them told the two that the cloak did not exist, they had even cast the person revealing spell when he was hidden under his cloak the spell told Bathsheda she was the only person within the room.

If the Cloak was real then that meant the Stone and Wand were real too, according to Dumbledore's notes Slytherin certainly believed the Stone was real and as Dumbledore had written the notes and given him the book it was a fair assumption Dumbledore believed in them too. Assuming Dumbledore was correct in believing Grindelwald was related to Antioch did that mean Grindelwald had the Wand? Or as the Wand was stolen in both versions of the story did that mean Grindelwald was searching for the Wand by raiding other family heirlooms and never found it? Surely if Grindelwald had possessed an unbeatable wand, it would have been huge news.

Looking down at his cloak he absentmindedly stroked it and tried to look at it with his mage sight, it had been resisting his sight which had never happened to him before, but Harry had previously not paid it any mind and let his gaze move elsewhere, putting the confusion out of mind, now however he concentrated on the cloak and forced himself to really look at it, he felt the compulsion to look away but now he knew it was there he fought it, he felt something give and suddenly he could see the Cloak like never before.

It was beautiful, the magic seemed to be empty and yet full at the same time, its magic was black but spotted with pinpricks of light like stars, it reminded Harry of looking at the night sky, moving the cloak he noticed the pattern was static, the stars remained fixed and when the cloak moved it was as if the lights moved with the Cloak to keep their position.

The Cloak was like a window into magic rather than the magic making up the Cloak, he had never seen anything like this before. Except for that one time he had gotten a glance at Dumbledore's wand…

* * *

Harry walked the corridors, he still researched ways to undo death but feared that he would not find a way anytime soon, the only artifact even rumoured to actually bring back the memories of the bed was the resurrection stone which Harry knew was the Stone in the Tales of Brothers Three.

He had not approached Dumbledore about the story but had looked into the families in the notes, the last of the Gaunt's had died in Azkaban over a decade ago, he had come across an Eileen Prince graduating Hogwarts in 1957 but she seemed to disappear into the Muggle world, the Grindelwald line seemed to have died with Gellert although apparently he had a sister that was mentioned briefly in a book telling the story Grindelwald in the Library.

He had unearthed another note from Dumbledore's books that said Ignotus' grave was located in Godric's Hollow and Cadmus' grave was located in Great Hangleton, Dumbledore also wrote about trying to find Antioch's grave, it seemed each brother had been buried in different countries, Ignotus in Wales, Cadmus in England and Antioch was reportedly murdered and buried in Scotland, however nobody has ever found his grave.

Some suspected he was buried near Hogsmeade as Godric's Hollow remained one of the largest magical communities in Wales while Great Hangleton used to be a large magical community before a battle had killed most of the magical families, the Gaunts where the last magical family to reside in the town by the turn of the 19th century.

Dumbledore had speculated that it wouldn't make sense for Antioch to be buried in Hogsmeade as Ignotus' descendants had still lived in Godric's Hollow when Dumbledore had written his notes and the Gaunts were suspected to be descended from Cadmus in Hangleton, Antioch seemed to have no direct relation to Hogsmeade, it might make sense for Cadmus to have been buried there as it had been Slytherin who had made Hogwarts and he was Cadmus' descendant, not Antioch's.

Harry was pulled from his musings when Mrs Norris hissed at him, turning he saw her sitting at the end of the corridor, tail swishing as she hissed, Harry shushed her only and she started to meow loudly, Harry heard Filch running towards him and quickly entered the room closest to him, he pulled out his wand and tapped it to the lock and placing the strongest locking charm he knew.

Fortunately Filch walked away and so his locking charm did not get put to the test, Harry turned to look around the room he had entered, it was bare except for a large gilded mirror, there seemed to be some writing along the top in a language Harry did not know, the only word that stuck out was Erised, Bathsheda had mentioned a mirror of Erised Christmas day and here was a mirror with the word Erised carved into it.

Stepping closer Harry wanted to see what power this mirror possessed, Bathsheda hadn't mentioned it and he hadn't thought to ask, he unfastened the invisibility cloak and opened it at the front to make himself visible, he had sat in front of the mirror all night and only when sunlight broke through the dusty windows did Harry rise and leave.

Every night he returned to gaze into the mirror, Bathsheda noticed his lack of concentration but he refused to share why, she had tried to follow him one night but he had led her around the school before slipping away unnoticed back to the mirror on the other side of the school, she never admitted to following Harry and Harry never brought it up, finally one night Harry entered the mirror room and immediately noticed the magical dead space at the back of the room.

"Wulfric" He said politely, he had decided that in all matters private and secretive he would refer to the headmaster by his alias.

"Harry"

Dumbledore did not seem to want to talk further so Harry sat before the mirror, he felt with his magic Dumbledore move and join him in front of the mirror

"I trust you have worked out how it works by now?"

"It shows our desire, it also has a mild compulsion to keep looking, I had never thought of protecting something by drawing attention to it before."

"Protecting?"

"This mirror glows like the items of death, or at least like my Cloak and your Wand, I can't speak of the Stone yet." he felt Dumbledore stiffen and heard the sharp intake of breath

"It's different though, with the Cloak the pattern quite literally hidden, it is also static and the Cloak moves around it, this means the Cloak's signature is everywhere but can only be seen when looking through the physical representation of the Cloak, I think that is how it is so perfectly hidden, if you search for magic inside a ward the ward does not appear, in a sense everything is within the Cloak as if under a gigantic, world sized ward.

"With the Wand at first I thought it had no pattern but now I think I was wrong, everything magical has to have a signature and a pattern, I think the Wand has the inverse of a true pattern, any witch or wizard of sufficient strength can use it as their magic will override the inverse making it an exact replica of their own magic. The colour of a witch or wizard generally matches their wand's colour, Bathsheda is kind of purple and her wand is dark magenta, mine is green and my wand is dark green, I find it fitting I only see your magic as see-through grey and your wand is clear…"

Harry paused and took a deep breath, his reflection grinned at him, urging him to continue "While the magic of the wielder of the Wand overrides the inverted magic of the Wand it is a two way share, the inverted magic runs under the wielder's magic, corrupting them more every time they use the Wand until all that is left is the Wand. With the mirror I think it is similar to my original assessment of the Wand in that it has no true pattern of its own but reflects every pattern put upon it… the mirror doesn't actually show your desire, it's far more crueler, it shows what could have been…"

Harry said all this while his eyes remained glued to the mirror, within the reflection Hermione smiled back, beside her was himself as he wished he was and then his parents behind the two. He had chosen to ignore his mirror self, he figured it would be seen as wrong to fear your deepest desire but didn't fear his mirror self… he feared how the mirror self could so easily be him if he chose to ignore his friends.

He and Dumbledore sat and watched their reflections, neither spoke but they didn't need to speak either, it would be strange for an onlooker to see them, two wizards, one so very old while the other was so very young, both looked into the mirror and the mirror stared back, both were wise enough to know the mirror did not foretell the future and both were powerful enough to break the compulsion yet still they looked on, at their desire, at their regret and at themselves.

One saw himself young and optimistic while the other saw himself mature and knowledgeable, finally Dumbledore broke the silence "I came to tell you the mirror will be moved, I had also hoped to teach you about the mirror, yet it seems it is you teaching me" he gave a dry chuckle

"I think you are being too kind Professor, if what you say is true then I only know more as I am not wise enough to leave such secrets alone"

"Wisdom is not measured in how much someone knows but in how much they listen… and I fear I listen far too little."

"If someone can't learn to do something well, they should learn to enjoy doing it badly." Harry said wisely

"Indeed… I can't help but wonder what that has to do with the conversation?" Dumbledore said confused

"I thought we were trading quotes" Harry said shrugging "And you say you listen to little yet you were paying enough attention to me to get confused." At that Dumbledore started chuckling which turned into a full laugh, the door burst open and Filch stuck his head inside, immediately Dumbledore froze, Filch looked around the seemingly empty room in confusion before shutting the door slowly and walking away confused, Harry shot a silencing spell at the door and the moment it was in place Dumbledore began laughing again, Harry chuckled along, letting Dumbledore finish at his own pace.

Recovering from his fit of laughter, Dumbledore asked Harry "You are certainly wiser than you give yourself credit for, Harry"

"I'm just repeating quotes I heard when I was younger that thought sounded cool, I guess I'm also tired and that always makes me rather whimsical" Harry then stood slowly and reluctantly tore his eyes from the mirror "I'm going to head back to my dormitory, I need to look beyond my desires if I ever want to achieve them, I'll remind you _headmaster_ that people have wasted away looking at it"

Dumbledore chuckled again and just before Harry left asked "In your reflection, is she content?"

Harry paused and finally nodded "She is, what about your reflection?"

"She is well… I just wish I had known her better so that I would not have to rely on hope and my desires"

"The dead do not loathe the living, look at the ghosts, they exist because they didn't want to die and yet they still do not hate the living and a man's worth is not measured in their desires but how they go about achieving it… Good night professor"

"I never asked, what is it the mirror is protecting?"

Slipping out of the room Harry only said "The Dead"

* * *

_Robert Galbraith is the name of the author of the book "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" which you can physically buy alongside the normal Harry Potter books… In case I was too vague Harry sees himself and his parents like cannon except he also has a living Hermione by his side while his own reflection is what he wishes he could be, he fears it because he knows to achieve his desire he must ignore his rules and morals, Dumbledore sees Ariana alive and well while a young and innocent version of himself talks to her and gets to know her._

_Personally I really enjoyed writing this chapter and if you disliked it then I am sorry to say that chapters like this will slowly become more common as the story progresses. _


	24. The Philosopher's Stone

The rest of the year at Hogwarts slipped away, it seemed like a blink of an eye for Harry and the end of term tests were upon them, he was extremely confident he had passed but he admitted to Bathsheda later that some of the theory had still been challenging for him. It seemed like the head start he had gotten before Hogwarts was beginning to fade, of course the other students were unlikely to ever catch up to him in terms of power, that was unless unless they learned to form mithril.

Harry was hoping that next year the classes would be challenging, he was looking forward to learning defense against the dark arts although from what he had seen of Quirrell his stutter could get extremely annoying.

The year had been rather boring for Harry overall, one of the interesting moments was when he had helped Hagrid search the forbidden forest for whoever was hunting the unicorns.

Harry and Hagrid had spent most of that evening talking about the various creatures in the forest, they had even run into the centaurs who had been extremely unhelpful but eventually they had found the dying unicorn. Hagrid had tried to save it but its injuries were too severe.

As they knelt before the dying unicorn a larger unicorn had emerged from the dark before them, it knelt over the other unicorn and had licked its wounds, the cuts had sealed themselves and the remaining blood lost its silver appearance and became a dull grey, the dying unicorn had whinnied once and dropped its head to the ground dead.

The larger unicorn rose until it stood tall and stared at Harry and Hagrid, Hagrid bowed before the creature and Harry followed his lead and kept his eyes fixed on the ground, Harry heard the unicorn step closer and felt his hair being sniffed, he had stayed stock still until eventually the unicorn had snorted and trotted back into the darkness and out of sight.

* * *

Since finding the mirror of Erised Harry had taken to wander the halls of Hogwarts invisibly, he had found many secrets within the walls and rooms, hoping to find out at least one more of the castles secrets before he had to leave the castle for the summer Harry had decided on one last wander.

When he saw Professor Quirrell's magic flash past Harry started to follow, curious as to why the defense professor was running around Hogwarts invisible after midnight. He followed the man down the third floor corridor but stopped when he entered Fluffy's room.

Harry decided it would be best to alert Dumbledore when Quirrell suddenly turned and pointed his wand behind Harry, Harry turned to see what he was pointing at and just managed to see a large stone pedestal fly into him, as he fell backwards he felt his cloak open, losing its invisibility until he hit the floor hard and smacked his head against the floor and the world faded to black.

Harry began regaining consciousness slowly, first he regained enough consciousness to realise Quirrell was playing a huge game of Wizards Chess before he fell unconscious again, next he grew aware of great walls of fire around him and a potion being forcefully poured down his throat, he felt the magic from the potion soak into him and became aware of his own magic trying to fix the damage done to him, his eyes shut knowing the next time they opened he would be back to full health.

When he finally fully awoke he was in a strange room that he had never seen before, the only things in the room were Professor Quirrell and the Mirror of Erised, Quirrell was pacing before the mirror muttering angrily, it seemed he had been there for a while

"I see myself with the Stone, I see myself giving it to my master, but how did I get it? Do I break the mirror?"

"You may find breaking that mirror harder than you would imagine" Harry commented as he stood up, he had felt his pockets and had noticed his wand and school supplies had been taken, he still had his rings on though and he guessed he could summon his flask if he got thirsty.

Even without his wand he was not defenseless since he could form a weapon with mithril, unfortunately he had left his saber in the workshop as both he and Bathsheda had decided it would be too dangerous for him to carry it around school, however he didn't want to reveal his mithril to someone how wanted the Philosopher's Stone, most likely he was an agent of Voldemort.

"Ah Potter, so glad you could join us, surprised are you? Not to see poor stuttering Quirrell?"

"Not really" Harry shrugged "I mean I guess I'm surprised that Dumbledore didn't pick up on it before but knowing him he did and just didn't see you as enough of a threat, I guessed Voldemort would send someone after the Stone when Dumbledore told me it was kept here."

"Dumbledore is an old fool… of course I wonder if your mud-blood friend would have said I am not a threat? It was me that brought the troll into the school after all _Potter_. It was meant to just be a distraction, but that fool Snape got in my way before I could get here, a shame really, she needn't have died."

Quirrell had let the troll in… Hermione was dead because of him… and now he was gloating about it.

Thrusting out his hand Harry let the mithril spear he had been forming fly across the room directly towards Quirrell. The professor's eyes widened and he jumped out of the way and watched the spear sink into the Mirror. The glass rippled as if it were made of water, Quirrell turned back to the boy and Voldemort was forced to take control over Quirrell's body to raise a shield of solid steel to slow the spear while jumping to the side.

Harry's eyes widened as he sensed the change in magic, looking with his mage sight he saw the last remains of Quirrell's light pink magic be absorbed by the dark red of Voldemort's, once all the pink had vanished Quirrell's face blurred and was replaced with a different face. The face of Lord Voldemort, Harry assumed.

"Enough!" Voldemort roared as he sent a wave of raw magic at Harry that knocked him to the ground, he snapped his fingers and made ropes of pure energy that restrained Harry while also draining him of his power.

"A valiant effort boy, it is not often someone manages to surprise Lord Voldemort. You should join with me, together we could rule the world. You could be great someday and together we would be unstoppable!"

"As if I would ever join you, you're pure evil!" Harry spat defiantly

Voldemort tutted scornfully "Look how the boy talks of good and evil. Child there is no good or evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it. Your father rejected my offer too you know, three times I gave him the choice to join me. How fitting that you now follow in your father's footsteps all the way to the same grave. Soon I will regain a body of my own and destroy you once and for all"

"I prefer the saying 'there is no good or evil, just power and those _wise_ enough to wield it' and you are not wise enough" Harry ignored the comment about his father, he knew he needed to keep his head if he was to escape, thoughts ran wild around through his head but none were feasible.

Voldemort only tipped his head in acknowledgment before turning to the Mirror, Voldemort studied it carefully and he sensed the charms and enchantments that Dumbledore had placed over the Mirror, those enchantments stopped Voldemort locking deeper into the magic of the Mirror without completely destroying the Stone within.

He would have to play the old fool's games for just a little longer, turning back to the boy he pulled him in front of the mirror with his magic and hissed "Look within boy, tell your Lord what you see"

Harry looked and saw only his mirror self, looking at the hand of his other self he saw a small glowing red stone, so small it could easily fit within his palm and not be seen, his other self lowered the stone into its pocket and suddenly Harry felt a weight settle within his pocket.

Voldemort must have sensed something was wrong, he tried turning the boy to face him however the moment his hands came in contact with the boy's skin they began searing with pain. The boy had felt it too and fell to the floor with a cry, the stone fell out of his hand and rolled onto the ground.

Both Voldemort and Harry stared at the Stone and Harry tried to grab it, Voldemort's wandless banisher hit it first however and it sailed across the room, Harry began running towards it and Voldemort tried to summon it, luckily it seemed it was protected against summoning for the Stone did not even rock.

Seeing that Harry had almost reached the Stone Voldemort desperately sent a dark flame spell towards the Stone, the purple flames only burned living beings which left the Stone alone however they jumped towards Harry's outstretched hand, Harry pulled his hand back in pain and saw Voldemort walking towards him slowly, cautious in case Harry had any tricks left.

Knowing he didn't have the energy left to send another spear Harry turned back to the burning Stone and formed a gauntlet of mithril around his hand, he thrust his protected hand into the flames and scooped up the Stone without getting burned.

Turning back to Voldemort Harry's eyes widened when Voldemort's curse struck Harry in the chest flinging him into far the wall, Voldemort flew over and tried to pry the stone from the boys hand, only let out a scream of pain when his hand came in contact with the strange silver metal which burned exactly like the effects of the flame curse he had set on the Stone.

On the floor Harry was desperately trying to fight the curse Voldemort has placed on him but even after fully draining all of the mithril in the bands he wore on his ankles he still wasn't strong enough to break the spell. Finally he only had the gauntlet left and so he drew his magic from that too… then kept drawing magic as the gauntlet did not even seem affected by the drawing of magic, however the Stone began glowing brightly.

Harry looked with his mage sight and saw that the Stone's magic glowed like it was made of fire, where the stone came in contact with the mithril tendrils of this fiery magic had cut into the green magic of the mithril.

On the edge of the mithril the dark red tint of Voldemort's own magic lay caged within bars of green with the Stone's fire holding the bars together, Harry instinctively knew that although the gauntlet now had the Stone's magic embedded within it still obeyed him completely, it was almost as if the Stone and mithril had merged and shared their powers, the Stone was under his control and identified him as its new master.

Pulling all the magic he could from the Stone he held it tightly within until he felt he would burst, in one great push he aimed his magic at Voldemort's curse and directed all his fury into it, Voldemort's magic snapped under the onslaught of magic and Harry rose defiantly, smoke curling off his body from trying to contain so much energy.

He pointed his gauntleted hand at Voldemort and shot a stream of magic at him, Voldemort waved his wand and summoned a shield of pure magic to protect him, if he was surprised at the power the boy possessed he did not show it.

Despite Harry having another, more powerful source of magic to tap into, his body was not capable of dealing with such high quantities of magic and Harry began feeling like he had a temperature and smoke began curling off his body, Voldemort grinned behind his shield as despite not being at his full magical potential he was used to such high demands of magic, Quirrell hadn't when they had first met but under the training of the dark lord his power had quickly grown.

Harry felt himself kneel as his body began to give way and Voldemort started walking towards him, pushing the shield forward, Harry knew he had lost but hoped that even if he died Voldemort would never be able to get the Stone out of the mithril.

Just as his magic gave up Dumbledore stormed into the room and began a vicious assault on Voldemort, knowing he would never be able to withstand Dumbledore while within the wards of Hogwarts even at full power, Voldemort summoned Fiendfyre before forcing his spirit out of what was left of Quirrell and fled the castle and the country.

Back in the chamber Dumbledore fought the Fiendfyre desperately, Fawkes had flamed into the chamber and was doing his best to keep the fire away from Harry and Dumbledore but even a phoenix cannot control Fiendfyre, Fawkes also managed to shed a tear onto Harry so that the boy could escape when needed.

Harry felt his body repair from the damage his magic had inflicted onto it and stood slowly, watching Dumbledore battle the raging tornado of fire, Harry felt the dark taint rolling out of the flames and realised this was extremely bad, it appeared like it was only the Wand of death that was even allowing Dumbledore to hold the fire back from burning them all.

Knowing Dumbledore needed his help, Harry formed a ball of mithril with the ideology of flooding and rolled it into the heart of the fire even before it had fully solidified, instantly a wall of steam erupted from within the fire as the flood of water met the fire, Dumbledore saw what was happening and directed the fire inwards, towards the water.

Harry had to form two more of the mithril balls before the Fiendfyre finally died out, the first mithril ball was almost entirely melted and gave off a few pitiful spurts of water when he found it, the other two were less damaged but Harry noticed they were deformed and dispensing water far slower than they should.

He began to grow panicked as he was unable to deform the spheres at it seemed the fire had deformed them enough to change the properties of the mithril's magic, making him lose control over them.

Thinking quickly Harry summoned his flask and dropped the three balls into it then let the flask go, praying that the balls would remain static in metaphysical space until he thought of a way to deform them.

With the danger over, the adrenaline faded and Harry realised just how exhausted he was, he turned to Dumbledore to tell him how tired he felt only to fall unconscious mid turn.

* * *

Harry awoke suddenly, he decided he was getting extremely annoyed at falling unconscious, he sat up slowly and felt a sense of deja vu, he was in the hospital wing again with Dumbledore sitting beside him

"I cannot express how glad I am that you are safe, Harry"

"Personally, I'm getting fed up with falling unconscious, is the Stone safe professor?"

"It's still firmly stuck within your mithril gauntlet, I had to convince Poppy that it was accidental magic in order for her to leave it… now would you mind telling me how you came about being in that room with Voldemort, Harry?" He told Dumbledore exactly what happened and Harry thought he saw pride bloom within Dumbledore's eyes

"That was extremely brave Harry, few adult wizards would have had the bravery to stand up to Voldemort like you did tonight"

"I was scared mostly" Harry admitted

"Ah, but bravery is doing something despite being afraid, indeed if you were not scared I would be more concerned…"

"Sir what happens with the Stone now?"

"Well, I have been talking to Nicolas and we have decided that the Stone should remain with you."  
"What? But doesn't he and his wife need the Stone to live?"

"He does. However, the reason I was out of the castle tonight was because I was meeting with Nicolas and we had just decided the Stone was too dangerous to keep, when I felt the Stone leave the mirror and returned here as quick as I could. It came as a surprise to find that the Stone had merged with your mithril, I spoke with Nicolas about it and he agreed that it would be safer to keep it with you, under your protection… Although I am going to ask that you train considerably before using the power of the Stone again. Channeling that power almost killed you Harry and it was only Fawkes' tears that saved you"

Harry nodded humbled, he had started to think he was untouchable due to his mithril but even with his mithril Voldemort had very nearly killed him, even combing his mithril and the Stone had not been enough to stand up to a weakened Voldemort.

"Now, I would personally suggest adding to the gauntlet whatever makes your flasks appear whenever they are called along with anything you and Bathsheda decide is best"

* * *

Harry was let out of the hospital wing that night decided to go to his workshop, when he opened the door, he found Bathsheda pacing "Do you know how worried you made me?" She asked as soon as she noticed him

"I'm sorry, I was going to find you but I got found before I could escape"

Bathsheda pulled him forward and hugged him tightly, she let him go after a short while and said "Now was there anything left you wanted to do before summer?"

Harry pulled out the gauntlet from his bag and showed it to her, he had managed to get it to detach from his hand but had been unsure on what to do without Bathsheda present

"I also have to deal with some mithril that melted in a fire" Harry said

"Your mithril melted?"

"Yea, Voldemort summoned this fire before he fled and it took me, Dumbledore and a phoenix to stop it"

"Sounds like it could have been Fiendfyre… I suppose it would make sense that something that powerful could even damage the mithril"

Harry picked his saber off its shelf where it normally sat alongside Dumbledore's sculptures and the very first, shrunken, ward generator, he then called his flask, instantly water began spilling from the top and onto the floor, tipping his flask upside down the three balls fell out and began flooding the workshop.

Harry quickly stabbed all three with the saber and watched with satisfaction as they vanished into the saber, frowning at the water left over Harry put the gauntlet on and willed the water to rise, forcefully stopping himself from remembering who had been with him the last time he had done something like this.

With the power of the gauntlet he was able to lift up all of the water in one go, he felt the burn from channeling too much magic and let most of the water drop back to the floor until the burn had receded, he then cooled the water left into a large sheet of floating ice.

By turning the water into a solid it allowed him to pick up the remaining water, rather than needing to focus on each individual water drop he could just lift up part of the ice sheet in one go, once all the water had been collected and frozen he asked Bathsheda to vanish it.

Once the water had gone room was spotless, he put down the gauntlet and let Bathsheda look at it again  
"What's this stone?"

"I believe it's commonly known as the Philosopher's Stone"

She looked at him in disbelief but turned back to the Stone and realised he was right, she demanded an explanation so Harry told her what Dumbledore had said in the hospital wing.

Harry then tried to reform the gauntlet to add some ideologies only to find that he could only reform the parts of the gaunt that remain untouched from the Stone's own magic, determined not to be stopped Harry formed a small block of mithril with the ideologies of possession, anti-theft, notice-not and resizing, he then willed the gauntlet to absorb the block completely.

He felt the gauntlet take hold of the ideologies, within the resizing ideology were various conditions, he hoped that the gauntlet would resize and change into a ring he could wear on his finger and then when he flexed his magic the ring would change back into the gauntlet.

It took some work but eventually he had managed to get the gauntlet to change to a ring and back at will, he did not want to risk making the gauntlet metaphysical incase the Stone did not change with the gauntlet or did change but wouldn't change back, resulting in it being lost in the metaphysical pane.

He then turned to his saber and added the metaphysical ideology, he then took the ring that called his flask and added another call for the saber, depending on whichever one he was thinking of, he would either summon his saber or flask.

That did mean he couldn't have both the flask and the saber at the same time but it was a small price to pay, if he had his saber when he was facing Voldemort things might have been easier.

Looking down at his finger he wondered if people would question why he now had three rings. The first ring which was closest to his knuckle was the ring Hermione had made before her death, next he had the ring for his flask and saber and then finally the ring for his gauntlet.

The ring for the gauntlet was uniquely different compared to the other two, Hermione's ring was a plain band of pure silver and seemed normal until you looked at the magic behind it and saw it was identical to what had been Hermione's magic, his flask ring had originally been a plain metal band too but over time he had added designs around the edge and coloured it a dark, mossy green.

However the gauntlet ring had formed itself with a small bright red gem on top that Harry recognised as the Philosopher's Stone, just resized to fit properly on the ring, the metal band had strips of the red crystal running over and through the metal and if you looked closely you could see it looked like small streams of fire were flowing within the crystal, the band itself was plain looking except a thin line of dark red along the edge.

People would later find that trying to steal that ring would feel as if their hand was burning, the harder they pulled the hotter the burning would get, eventually their entire hand would combust.

When Harry had thrust the newly formed gauntlet into the fire curse the gauntlet had absorbed the curse into itself, making itself stronger. Which was then imbued into the anti-theft ideology Harry had added. If Harry gave the gauntlet to someone willingly the holder would not be affected but if someone tried to take it by force the anti-theft and curse would activate.

The possession ideology meant that while Harry possessed the gauntlet it would obey him totally, it also meant it was completely immune to magic from anyone other than him although it would take in any magic that would strengthen it, finally the notice-not meant that nobody would look too deeply at the ring, either at its magic or appearance.

* * *

Harry boarded the train regretfully, he would have preferred to have stayed at Hogwarts over the summer but had figured he wouldn't be allowed. Bathsheda had said she would have a lot of work to do over the holidays and would not be able to write much but if he had any issues or questions he should feel free to write to her. He had received a letter from 'Wulfric' which had said basically the same thing except he had added that if he said the name Fawkes, the phoenix would appear.

Hagrid had said he would try and write, he had also given Harry a book full of pictures of his family, at the back of the book there was room to add more and the last page of the book had a photo of him, Hermione and Hagrid laughing. Harry had added a photo of just him and Hagrid, him and Bathsheda and then the photo of him and Hermione he had gotten from Ron at Christmas.

Riding the train was a boring journey without friends to talk. Neville was still avoiding him and Ron had enough sense to stay away, Harry read the 'Tales of the Brothers Three' again and wrote into his own notebook, he decided he would like to see Godric's hollow and Hangleton someday just to see the graves, he knew he could have asked Dumbledore to take him for the man must surely have gone himself but Harry wanted this to be his own journey.

The train arrived at Kings Cross far too quickly for Harry's liking and soon he was sat in Vernon's car heading back to Privet Drive and the Dursleys

* * *

_So ends year 1, short recap, Harry is aware of the deathly Hallows and is a "seeker" of the hallows and Dumbledore is starting to see Harry as an equal._

_If you want to know what the gauntlet looks like imagine one of Ironman's gauntlets, instead of the arc reactor in the palm you have the Philosopher's Stone, the mithril gauntlet is of course copied off of the infinity gauntlet and will be developed upon later, I am currently imagining the Stone as a combination of the power stone and reality stone._

_As I said back in chapter one Harry will / does get powerful very quickly, already at the age of eleven he has access to enough power to beat young Dumbledore's protections in Desire and enough to fight Voldemort to a standstill, of course having enough power isn't the problem, the problem is from Harry not being able to channel the power safely, in my mind Harry was seconds from bursting into flames before Dumbledore arrived when he was holding off Voldemort._

_So far the summer holiday between years will be longer than in the actual book, if anyone wants to guess what will happen closest guess gets a cookie, once summer is over second year will most likely be shorter than this first year as the basics of this magic has largely been established. _


	25. 20 questions saves the day

Harry was not enjoying his summer holiday, the moment he had returned to Privet Drive Vernon and Petunia had rounded on him.

"You've been practicing your _freakishness _behind our backs, haven't you, boy!" Vernon had growled "There'll be no more of that, you hear me? We're taking your books too, clearly you can't be trusted to read them without doing your _freakishness_ in secret!"

Harry could not remember ever hating the Dursleys more, all of his Hogwarts belongings had been taken from him, all except his homework and when he finished it the work got whisked away to be locked up too, even his wand and two of his rings had been taken from him. Fortunately they could not seem to see his gauntlet ring at all and so it had escaped the Dursleys confiscation of his things.

Harry could have easily unlocked the cupboard, he had long ago learned how to get pick the lock even without his magic, however he did not want to aggravate the Dursleys any further, he feared Vernon might destroy his belongings if he was caught trying to free them. And to add insult to injury nobody had bothered to write to him the entire holiday.

He would have grown bored quickly but the Dursleys had almost tripled how much work they expected him to do and he simply did not have the time to grow bored. The day of his twelfth birthday had started like every other day that summer, except he had began feeling something magical nearby all afternoon, whenever he turned to get a close look it vanished instantly, all he knew was that the magical signature that they left behind was a sickly yellow.

When he finally finished with his work he was going to his room when he suddenly became aware that whatever had been stalking him all afternoon was now moving around within his room, he flexed his hand and felt his gauntlet spread from from its ring from to cover his hand and part of his forearm, the Philosopher's Stone glowed faintly on his palm as if happy to be back to its normal size.

Opening the door quickly he realised the yellow magical signature was a house elf, a house elf that was currently bouncing on his bed. The elf stopped the moment he noticed Harry "So long Dobby has been wanting to speak to great Harry Potter sir, so long! But great Harry Potter was always working and Dobby did not want to interrupt his workings Sir" Harry lowered his gauntleted hand slowly, starting to feel silly, he felt he should have noticed that the signature belonged to a house elf after he spent so long around the elves in Hogwarts.

"Why are you here, Dobby?" he asked tiredly, he knew trying to be polite to an elf would upset them and he was too exhausted to bother having an argument.

"Dobby has come to warn the great Harry Potter sir that he cannot return to Hogwarts!"

"Where should I go then?"

"Harry Potter sir?" Dobby asked confused

"Well I'm not staying here for the rest of my life, actually I think the Dursleys would literally kill me if I said I was going to stay here all year round."

"Dobby does not understand sir… Why would great Harry Potter not want to stay with his family?"

"They aren't my family" Harry said tiredly, he felt some magic take note of his words but had decided enough was enough and to cut his loses, the Dursleys would never appreciate him as family, especially now that he had committed the ultimate sin by deciding to learn magic "I may live under their roof and Petunia may share my mother's sister but they are no family of mine"

"Dobby thinks he may understands great Harry Potter, Dobby serves his family too but they don't see Dobby as family…" the elf's ears drooped sadly before he grabbed Harry's bedside lamp and started bashing himself over the head with it, Harry reached out with his magic and wretched it out of the elf's hands.

"I don't suppose you could tell me _why_ I can't return to Hogwarts?"

"Great danger awaits great Harry Potter sir, a great evil has been awoken!"

"Is it Voldemort?"

"Say not the name sir! Say it not!"

"Sorry… fine, is this to do with _he who must not be named_?"

"Not… Not to do with he who must not be named, no sir" Dobby said this slowly, as if trying to give Harry a clue, whatever the clue was Harry wasn't getting it.

"One of his followers perhaps?"

"Dobby cannot say…" that must mean that somebody had specifically ordered Dobby not to talk of it

"Okay then… how about this… it would not be an insult to your family if you denied they are behind the attack but it would also not be an insult to _not _deny it either. Now, is your family in some way related to this danger?"  
Dobby stood stock still, eyes wide, Harry breathed a sigh, finally he was getting somewhere. From downstairs he heard the doorbell ring and knew that the Dursleys diner guests had arrived.

"Well if it is not you-know-who directly, is something related to him?"  
Dobby nodded frantically ears flapping

"Do you know if I have ever met your family?"

"The Family heir often be complaining about you, but stopped sometime into the school year, Family Lord once had complained about meeting the great Harry Potter" That did narrow it down significantly, it was a shame Dobby didn't know exactly when the heir stopped complaining about him, house elves had no sense of time like humans do, early in the school year could have been anywhere between the first day all the way to Easter.

"So… Something dangerous is going to happen at Hogwarts, you can neither confirm nor deny that your family is involved and I have met the Lord of your family at least once… the family heir complained about me but stopped early last year… could you tell me what house your family's heir is in Dobby?"

"The house of Salazar Slytherin like his mother and father before him" Dobby said proudly

"Is he… blond?" Harry asked slowly, Dobby nodded slowly looking at Harry anxiously "Okay… I think I've got it… but surely now that I know more about this danger I should be at Hogwarts to help stop it?"

"Great Harry Potter is so brave!" Dobby wailed, below Harry heard the conversation briefly pause before Vernon's voice boomed out "Must have left the television on upstairs, I'll go up and turn it off"

"Dobby you have to go, come back later if you wish, but you need to leave, _now_!" Harry said frantically as he heard his uncle begin to climb the stairs

"Promise Dobby you will not be returning to Hogwarts" Dobby said stubbornly

"I can't" Harry said desperately as he heard his uncle step onto the landing

"Then you be leaving Dobby no choice" Dobby said sadly and snapped his fingers and vanishing into thin air, inside his room every single object including his bed began levitating and floating around his room right as his door slammed open open

"Boy!" His uncle roared charging forward, Harry reacted instinctively and ducked under the man's swing and punched him in the jaw with his gauntleted hand. Normally, Harry would never have been strong enough for Vernon to even feel a punch from the boy but with his gauntlet and the strange power of the Philosopher's Stone his uncle was lifted off the ground and slammed into the floating wardrobe, Harry quickly ran out of the room and bounded down the stairs, past the frightened Masons and too his old cupboard, he willed the door to fly off its hinges with his magic and reached inside and quickly shoved everything into his school trunk.

Luckily it was almost entirely packed as he had never gotten the chance to unpack it, finally he retrieved his rings and wand, he put on the summoning ring and called forth his saber right as Vernon came barreling down the stairs, Harry activated his saber and pointed it at Vernon warningly "Stay back" Harry said in a low voice, not letting his fear show

"I'm not scared of a freak like you" Vernon said slowly, despite his words however he took a step back, away from Harry, suddenly Harry felt a fist collided with the back of his head and he realised that Dudley had gotten behind him, propelled forward Harry felt the saber stab Vernon and the man roared in pain.

Harry spun towards Dudley and pushed him back with his magic, enhanced by the gauntlet, he heard Vernon move and forced him back to the ground with magic, stepping over him he left the house for the last time and hurried out of Privet Drive, he knew he never wanted to return and wherever his home was, it was never in the house behind him.

He felt the wards that had surrounded the Dursleys for as long as he could remember break beyond repair and knew that for better or for worse, he had finally began to take his life into his own hands. Taking a moment to think things over, Harry knew his first step would be to change his appearance, even if he were not famous in the magical world it would be unusual for a twelve year old child to be walking around on his own, he considered trying to transfigure himself to look older but knew if he got it wrong the result could be disastrous.

"Dobby?" Harry called experimentally, almost immediately the house elf popped up in front of him

"Dobby is sorry great Harry Potter sir, Dobby did not know he was putting great Harry Potter in danger" Dobby sodded

"It's fine, just don't put me in danger again, please"

"Better lightly injured than dead… Dobby thinks" Dobby said quietly

"I would prefer to avoid both if I'm honest, now we can talk about how much pain you think is acceptable later, for now, regardless of this danger at Hogwarts in the future, I'm in big danger _now_. Would you be able to make me look older, say 19, and stop anyone from being able to find me?... Maybe change my hair too so I don't look like normal?"

"Dobby could sir!" Dobby said excitedly, he snapped his fingers and Harry felt Dobby's magic crawl over his body, it felt like a million insects had landed on him, when the feeling passed Harry had grown almost twice as tall as his old height. Another snap and Harry felt his hair grow out and lose its untidiness, reaching up to touch it he noted he now had curly hair and pulling it down to eye level revealed it was now a mousy brown colour.

"This is brilliant Dobby, how long will this last?"

Dobby seemed to blush at the praise "As long as great Harry Potter wishes it to last"

"Wow… Thank you Dobby, seriously… do you want to stay with me or do you have to go?"  
"Dobby would like to stay and help the great Harry Potter… but Dobby is afraid that his masters may call for Dobby and punish him for being away from his duties for so long."

"They can't punish you if they can't get you can they?"

Dobby looked at Harry hopefully and Harry quickly formed a pair of shoes for the elf made of mithril, he gave them the ideologies of comfort, resizing, cushioning, weightlessness and soles of air, the same ideologies on his own shoes, he then added the idea that while Dobby was wearing them he would be unable to hear anything that Harry couldn't and that all magic must be approved by Harry before Dobby could receive or use it.

"Put these on Dobby, hopefully they will stop your masters being able to call you, it's only a temporary solution, but for now it should work fine" The moment Dobby put on the shoes Harry got asked if he wanted the Malfoy family magic to feed Dobby, Harry agreed instantly knowing that if Dobby did not get his family's magic he would eventually die.

"They good?" Harry asked, anxiously

"Yes great master Harry Potter sir! They is being the best shoes Dobby has ever had the pleasure of wearing!"

"Perhaps you should just call me Harry? At least while we are in the Muggle world, don't want to draw attention to ourselves do we?"

"Dobby… Dobby could… if… if that is what… Harry wishes"

"You might also want to make it so anyone looking at you thinks you're a human since Muggles aren't used to seeing house elves."

Dobby snapped his fingers and he slowly formed into a child just smaller than Harry's current height and he looked like he was now Harry's younger brother, even the elf's pillowcase had morphed into a smaller replica of Harry's own outfit.

Harry nodded and stuck out his wand hand out into the road and waited, hoping he had remembered how to summon the Knight Bus from back when Dumbledore had told him last Summer. Just as he was about to give up hope a large bright purple triple decker bus popped into being in front of them, he and Dobby boarded the bus and when asked Harry told the conductor they wanted to go to "Greater Hangleton please"

* * *

_Alternate title: Harry the House Elf._

_So far, the next three chapters are all during the summer, if anyone wants to guess what will happen feel free, I might even say if you guess correctly. The Summer between year 1 and 2 will introduce more of the "main" characters that, most likely, won't be killed off, possibly._

_In case anyone is confused about how the Dursleys went from letting Harry go to Hogwarts to locking away all of his things, during the first summer they were terrified about what Harry might know, since then they had over 9 months to forget their fear and decide that Harry isn't as strong as they fear._

_As next week is around Christmas I will either have the next chapter up before or after Christmas day depending on how I feel._


	26. The Cadmean Victory

Harry and Dobby rode the knight bus in silence, Harry had been excited to try and find out how the knight bus worked but after the first jump he focused on not trying to throw up. Once they finally arrived they realised they needed to find a place to sleep, it occurred to Harry that in order to pay for a room you needed money and neither Harry or Dobby owned Muggle money.

They couldn't even transfigure money since Dobby had never seen Muggle money before and Harry was not skilled enough at transfiguration to make money that would pass inspection, when Harry had confessed to the innkeeper at the inn that they had no money to pay for a room he had said "Search out old Frank Bryce, he's the caretaker of the old Riddle house up on the hill down in Little Hangleton. Some of the locals may give him a bad rep but I knew him in the war, he's a good man. He probably won't be able to pay you but I reckon he would let you stay the night and give you food and the like in return for some help working around the house."

The two had needed to walk almost six miles to reach Little Hangleton and by the time they had arrived the sun had long since set, Harry had knocked on the small cottage behind the Riddle house and an old man opened the door, Harry absently noticed he was leaning heavily on his walking stick "Ehh, what ya want?" he grumbled.

"Erm, I was told you might consider letting me and my… brother stay for a few nights, we can work to make up for lack of money" Harry said hopefully, he had already warned Dobby to remain largely silent around Muggles, otherwise he would have stood out as different the moment he spoke.

"Told that, were ya? Awfully kind of em" He let out a sharp bark like laugh "You say you two can work? I might be able to find room for ya then, I'll warn ya now you may need to prepare your own food in the mornin's."

"Thank you sir, that's no problem me and my brother can both cook"

Frank let them in and showed them his spare bedroom, there was a thin layer of dust over everything in the room "This is yours for as long as you want to stay, I start work at 8 in the mornin', if ya wanna join me then I won't stop ya."

After Frank had gone Dobby had waved his hand and all the dust in the room instantly cleaned itself up and collected in a corner. Since there was only one bed against the wall Harry said "I'll let you have the bed Dobby, I'll just make a bed on the floor. Also you might want to come up with a Muggle name that I can call you in public, since the Muggles will think that your name is strange."

Dobby tried to argue and get Harry to take the bed but Harry had already formed a small flat square of mithril and a chisel, he quickly inscribed the preservation rune and gave the mithril the idea to use the excess magic to grow to a specific size. Once it had finished growing Harry broke the rune, the mithril square now looked like an inflatable mattress that had been fully inflated, just made of metal.

He then added the ideologies of comfort, softness and warmth, the two then settled down into their respective beds and quickly fell asleep, Harry did make sure to cast his typical locking charm on the door, it wouldn't stop a determined wizard but it would give him a warning, against a Muggle like Frank it would be impenetrable.

* * *

Harry and Dobby spent the first few days finding a routine, in the mornings they would wake up, prepare both breakfast and lunch for themselves and occasionally Frank, then the three would leave the cottage and go around the grounds of the manor doing whatever work needed doing, often just gardening, sometimes they would do various maintenance tasks that always seemed to sprout up with the old houses such as the Riddle Manor.

The three would go back to the cottage and eat the lunch they had prepared earlier, they would then have a short rest before continuing their work, finally Frank would call the day over and let the two do their own thing, on the first day Harry and Dobby had sorted out their room and planned what they wanted to do while in Hangleton, on the second day they had left the cottage and walked to the nearby graveyard.

Harry did not want to ask Frank if he knew where the grave of Cadmus, the main reason was that he wanted to avoid suspicion, the second was that he wanted this to be his own journey and adventure, fortunately for Harry he found the grave within the Riddle graveyard.

The grave had the name Cadmus Peverell, above the name was a familiar small triangle, line and circle symbol that was similar to Dumbledore's symbol, Harry assumed this was the original symbol for the objects of death that Dumbledore had based his own off, the symbol on the grave was also on top of the title of Dumbledore's copy of '_the tale of brothers three_' he compared the small triangle on the grave with the small triangle inked into the book, they were definitely the same symbol.

The grave said that Cadmus had been born on the 9th of August 1213 and died 19th of May 1292, that meant he had died almost 80 years old. It was strange, Harry thought, he had always assumed Cadmus had died young, although now that he thought of it the book never revealed the ages of the brothers.

The only other detail on the grave was the message "May Hades see him well", Harry knew that Hades was a Greek god from his books when he was younger, he didn't think people still believed in the Greek gods by the 13th century, Harry also couldn't help wondering why a wizard's grave would have the name of a Greek god inscribed into it when every pureblood witch and wizard at Hogwarts all seemed to be atheist.

There was no other Peverell gravestone but plenty of Riddles, there were also various other names, one of the more common being Gauntus, which Dumbledore had already mentioned in his copy of the book, Harry noticed that the three most recent graves was clearly for a son, mother and father, all three had the exact same date of death almost 50 years ago.

When they had returned to the cottage Frank was resting in his rocking chair with a hot water bottle on his knee "Saw you two go down to the graveyard" he commented as they walked in "What got you so interested in it?"

"I had been told I had family buried there, I wanted to see if I could find their grave" Harry said honestly, Dumbledore had suggested in his book that the Potters were distantly related to Cadmus and that he had been buried here.

"Ahh… did you find what you were looking for then?"

"Yes" Harry said simply, not wanting to reveal what grave he had been looking for "I also happened to notice the grave of Tom Riddle and his parents and the fact they all had the same date of death"

Frank sighed deeply "Ah, I was working for them when they died, the cook went to give them their food and found all three dead in their seats, not a mark on them. The staff blamed me of course and I got to spend the night in a police cell. People still talk about it, it's own of the reasons I avoid the village since they still blame me to this day. Aside from the actual murders the only unusual thing I remember on that day was this young lad nosing around near the house… looked remarkably similar to yourself now I think about it, except he had black hair. Of course by now he would probably be old enough to be your father… or grandfather even." Frank mused.

During the evenings Harry also helped Dobby talk properly, it was hard going but the elf was learning under Harry's patient teaching. Dobby in turn taught Harry what he knew of the history of the elves, it turned out that elves were originally much more like wizards than their modern counterparts.

The elves were renowned for their powerful nature magic, wizards got jealous and started imprisoning elves and controlling their magic, even back then elves were entirely dependent on external sources of magic compared to wizards and goblins who had an internal source of magic, for the natural elves they got their magic from the environment, it sounded like the various nature nymphs from mythologies were based off the elves.

Due to the elves dependency on external magic they could not go far from the places they were born, a wizard found a way to replace nature magic with his family's magic, giving him almost complete control over the elf. The elves suffered under the wizards magic and every generation the offspring would be weaker than the previous generation, by the time Dobby was born the elves heritage had been forgotten by all but the elder elves who had been told the story by the elders of their own time.

Harry had been watching magic interact with Dobby, with a witch or wizard the aura came from within, however for Dobby he had a constant field of magic surrounding him that was constantly in motion, when Dobby used magic he formed his intent and will internally then used the magic around him to actually power it.

It was as if Dobby had none of his own magic and was just renting magic. The Malfoy magic had almost constantly tried to hurt Dobby ever since he had joined Harry but due to the mithril boots, the magic had to ask Harry for permission before it could hurt Dobby, which he had denied every single time.

After a week had passed Dobby suddenly stopped receiving the Malfoy family magic, it seemed the family had finally disowned Dobby. Harry quickly made his own magic take up the slack and then started forming a new piece of mithril, he knew this would be the most complicated piece of mithril he had ever formed.

He made a small stud of mithril and gave it several ideologies, the most important were hidden, no fixed structure, obedient and changeable. He then had Dobby hold the stud in his hand, the stud seemed to vanish instantly and he asked Dobby to think of an item of clothing, a finger-less glove formed around his hand that looked like real leather, checking with his magic Harry was thrilled to see the glove was still made mithril, it just appeared to be leather.

Letting out a breath, Harry then made the mithril generate magic to also told the mithril to only produce magic when Dobby needed it, he slowly withdrew some of his own magic from Dobby and felt the mithril take up the slack instantly, he withdrew all of his magic remaining ready to give it back if needed. The mithril was quite capable of completely sustaining Dobby. When he asked Dobby to use magic the elf was able to cast even the most complex of elf magic easily without any difficulty.

"Oh Sir, Harry had gifted Dobby his own magic! Dobby will never forget great master's kindness and generosity!" Dobby had wailed, crying with joy, it was clear he had longed for magic of his own and Harry was pleased to have been able to give such a gift, Harry then slowly removed the protective ideologies on the elf's shoes.

As he worked Harry absently noticed that Dobby's magic had changed, first his magic had gained a much healthier shade of yellow ever since the Malfoy magic had been controlled but now the yellow was extremely vibrant and had mixed with the green of Harry's own magic, except unlike how the magic of the Philosopher's Stone had interlaced with his magic, Dobby's magic had laid over the magic, the green magic also seemed to sparkle which Harry had never seen before, when Dobby transfigured the bed into a desk, the magic from the mithril had been what powered the transfiguration while Dobby's magic seemed guided it.

Harry suspected Dobby now had an unlimited source of magic just like himself, but since the magic did not use his body as a conduit Dobby could theoretically transfigure the entire planet without burning up, he wondered if he should put some sort of limit on the magic but in the end he just shrugged, if the elf did go crazy and kill everyone with his infinite magic at least it would be interesting.

* * *

Harry decided there was only one place left in the Hangleton that he wanted to look at, that was why Harry was now in the greater Hangleton library researching, Cadmus Peverell.

Despite being a wizard it seemed the muggles had still written about Cadmus, there had been a great battle for the village in 1238, it had been Cadmus who had led an army to defend the village along with his two brothers, the invaders had managed to get far into the town before being stopped and only a few of the defenders had survived.

One of the survivors had been Cadmus, during the battle his fiance had been killed. Since to Cadmus had been the leader and the battle having such a high cost for both sides the battle was known as 'the Cadmean Victory'.

Cadmus had left Hangleton after the battle and only returned many, many years later to live out the rest of his life until his death, the history book did not say what Cadmus did during his missing years but Harry had a guess.

In the tale of brothers three it said Cadmus had tried to use the Resurrection Stone to bring back his dead love, the fact he spent almost 40 years away from Hangleton gave credence to the idea the brothers made the three items rather than find or get given them, if his brothers had also been involved in this battle that could also explain why Antioch had wanted an unbeatable wand and Ignotus a cloak that was undetectable.

Harry decided he had learned all he could about Cadmus from muggle sources and knew it was time to move onto Godric's Hollow, first though he wanted to visit Diagon alley to convert what was left of his wizard money from the year before into muggle cash. He told Frank that he was planning on leaving the next day and the man only grunted to show he understood, Frank had never been overly warm to them but he had been kind enough to let them stay in his cottage and eat his food for work, he also seemed to tolerate them after the first few days, the man seemed to enjoy quiet and Harry could respect that.

Neither he nor Dobby had any possessions that needed packing, almost all Harry owned had remained in his school trunk or was made of mithril, the inflatable mattress was the only large object to pack up and Harry just absorbed the magic until it was back to its original smaller size and just chucked it into his trunk, the room looked like they had first found it, just cleaner and far less dusty. As they left Frank said "You boys do good work, if you ever need a place to sleep… well your the first to ever use that spare bedroom. Take care of yourselves."

Dobby apparated them to the Leaky Cauldron, he was unable to apperate them to either Godric's Hollow or Hangleton as neither he nor Harry had been to the villages before and did not know the location. Dobby had never been to the Leaky Cauldron either but he was able to obtain the magical location from Harry when he said the location.

That was one of the subconscious pieces of magic wizards never noticed, when a witch or wizard spoke, their magic imbued itself into their words, when Harry said 'the Leaky Cauldron' his magic automatically included the magical location of the pub and an image into the words.

A witch or wizard was not sensitive enough to pick up either but as an elf Dobby was able to feel it and could then apparate to the pub, Harry suspected the fidelius ward worked by stopping the magical location from being included into a witch or wizard's speech unless they were the secret keeper.

Apperating with Dobby was strange, it felt as if they had paused in space and the planet was moving beneath them, then once their location was close to them they would suddenly rejoin the planet which was an extremely unpleasant experience, however Harry felt it was still miles better than riding the Knight Bus.

Once they had entered the alley, Harry strode up to Gringotts and joined the line, eventually they reached the goblin behind the desk "Yes?" the goblin asked wearily

"I would like to convert these galleons to muggle money please" Harry asked politely

"Five galleons for one pound" the goblin said, not even trying to hide his look of boredom

Harry passed over 20 galleons and the goblin carefully counted them, he then withdrew a piece of parchment and asked "name?"

"I'm sorry?" Harry asked confused

"I need your name for the receipt"

"Oh, I'm… Harry Potter" Harry felt it would be a poor decision to lie to the goblin, one of the goblin's thick eyebrows rose slightly as if mildly surprised

"Ahh, Mr Potter, we expected to see you last year. Your family's account manager has been going frantic trying to reach you. Wait here" the goblin jumped off his high chair and through a pair of doors behind him, he returned a few moments later with an even smaller goblin "Follow Griphook, he will take you to your account manager. Here is your money as well."

Griphook led him and Dobby through a maze of corridors and into a small office, the ceiling was so low Harry suspected most adults had to crouch to fit, luckily even in his aged up disguise he was still a few inches smaller than the ceiling, the goblin behind the desk was the most finely dressed goblin Harry had met so far.

"Greetings, heir Potter, I am account manager Silvertooth. I need to go over a few documents with you"

Silvertooth proceed to list the properties and possessions held under the Potter name, it was not much but it was more than Harry had ever owned in his life. The goblin then handed over a small silver bowl and knife, Harry picked up the knife and felt the magic running through it. Upon looking more carefully, he realised it was made of mithril, Harry grew excited at seeing another mithril item but then remembered Dumbledore telling him that the goblins had been using mithril for generations.

He then remembered Dumbledore warning Harry against letting the goblins see his mithril as they might take it as a personal attack, suddenly conscious of the three mithril rings upon his finger and the multitude of mithril objects in his trunk at his feet he hoped the goblins hadn't seen them.

"Please get a drop of blood into this bowl for me, Mr Potter"

Harry drew the knife across his palm and thought he hadn't cut hard enough as he had felt nothing, but looking down he saw a thin line of blood on his palm, it seemed the knife had been formed to not cause pain.

Once the blood had entered the bowl Harry absently drew his magic out of his blood that remained on the knife and let it collapse back into him, Silvertooth looked at him with what Harry thought might have been respect.

"It is not often we see a wizard capable of such a level of control over their magic. Of course most wizards don't enter Gringotts with their elf, disguised as a human, by their side. Nor do they wear three meithralum rings upon they hand, you make a refreshing change, Mr Potter… no need to look so surprised, we goblins do pride ourselves on our meithralum formation and evaluation after all."

"I was warned that you might take offense to me learning how to make mithril" Harry said sheepishly

Silvertooth shrugged "And yet you strode into Gringotts with them in plain view? Rest assured, we do not care. Magical knowledge is not something to horde or hide away, now the items we make with our own hands are most assuredly ours but magic? _Nobody _can claim ownership of that, least of all _wizards_."

Silvertooth poured the blood within the bowl out onto a tablet, also made mithril or _meithralum _as they called it apparently. The blood was absorbed into the mithril and strange letters began being written onto it, the letters made no sense to Harry but Silvertooth nodded.

"Well Mr Potter, you are the sole heir of the Potter and Black fortunes and beneficiary of House Peverell, you have a claim over some houses but you are unable to claim these until you become Lord of house Potter. Since you are unable to claim them currently they shall remain undisclosed, you currently have access to your trust account and the Peverell emergency vault."

After getting a run down on the few properties still standing Harry was about to leave when Silvertooth said "The Peverell's may not be very well known now, but the House stood long before the wizard's government, as such when you come of age you will hold a lot of sway over their government. I would personally advise you to learn as much about their government as you can before coming of age so that you do not get taken advantage of. I would very much like to see more gold flowing through your vaults and that can't happen if you lose it all by being uneducated."

Harry had been given a temporary key to open his trust vault that would only work once and advised to talk to his key holder about getting his primary key back. Apparently Dumbledore was his key holder and despite not giving him his key once he reached Hogwarts, Silvertooth admitted that Dumbledore was not a bad key holder as no vault under the Potter name had been opened since they were last closed by James Potter before his death.

Once he had reached his vault he was amazed at how much gold was present, he knew he only had one trip so filled three large bags with galleons, he then let the goblin seal the vault after placing a featherweight charm on the bags and went back up to the atrium, going back to the original teller he placed an entire bag of galleons on the desk and said "Could you convert all of these galleons into pounds? I will take one pound for four galleons"

"Earlier you were happy with five galleons" the goblin said dully as he began counting out four galleons and then stacking one pound

"Earlier I didn't know I had so much money" Harry said self consciously

"I don't care. So long as we can get rid of these awful muggle coins I don't care what we get for them"

"Three galleons?" Harry asked hopefully, the goblin shot him a deadly look but started counting out three galleons, eventually there were no galleons left in the bag and it was filled with pound coins, Harry then loaded all three bags into his trunk and left the bank, he had gotten more than he had hoped from that trip and was looking forward to Godric's Hollow.

* * *

_Many fanfiction stories either have the goblins flock to help Harry or are extremely aggressive, but I personally prefer the goblins being largely uncaring, in this story Harry is only important to them in that he has a few vaults that has money and they can get money from that money. _

_At the moment I am fairly interested in expanding upon the elves and how they relate to the wizarding world, when writing this chapter I was thinking "Will there be any downsides to freeing Dobby and giving him his own magic? Where did the elves come from? How do they compare to other magical beings such as goblins and veela?" in my head I have a few answers to those questions but whether those questions get answered in this story I do not know._

_This chapter is named after the story 'A Cadmean Victory' by __DarknessEnthroned which I strongly recommend _


	27. The Hallow and the Hollow

They took the Knight Bus to Godric's Hollow, before they left the alley Harry had taken the time to buy some resources from Diagon with his new found wealth, mostly he had bought books on history, practical magic and the government. One of the books he had bought that did not fit those categories was '_Occluding the mind: A mastery'_ he had long since finished reading the advanced study book he had been given for Christmas and had found he was moderately successful at the art.

At first it had been hard to focus his mind as he constantly had thoughts and ideas running through his mind, eventually after meditating almost every night since Christmas he had learned to clear his mind at will. After that it was a simple matter of ordering his mind and then placing shields, he had no idea how well they would hold back an attacker but he hoped they would be effective.

He had found that he could control his mind and shields like how he controlled his mithril, the more abstract he became the better they responded. Harry had also found that the more that he delved into occlumency, the easier it became to form his mithril. Now when he wanted to create mithril now he could block out rouge thoughts and focus solely on what he wanted, he hoped that who ever had given him the book would be proud.

* * *

Godric's Hollow looked fairly similar to Hangleton except smaller and cleaner, the Knight Bus dropped them off on the main road and as they walked deeper into the village Harry noticed a faint touch of magic in the air, it made sense as this was one of the larger magically populated villages in the UK.

It had come as a surprise when they had gotten close to the old war memorial and it had blurred into a statue of two people and a baby, Harry was amazed at the skill of the magic and absently looked at the faces of the statues only to freeze, he had only ever seen those faces a few times before and yet their faces would always be clear in his mind.

Here where his parents, the same parents he had seen in the mirror of Erised alongside Hermione, that meant the baby was himself, Harry. He did not know how long he stood there but he gradually became aware of an old woman standing nearby. He also noticed Dobby staring at the statue in wonder and remembered the elf saying even that amongst the house elves he was a legend, it made sense that his parents would be revered as legends too.

"Is this your first time here?" The woman said, voice strong and steady despite her frail appearance

"Yes?" Harry asked, slightly confused about why this old woman was approaching him and asking him such a weird question.

"Come with me, if you came to see the statue then you will want to see this too." she lead them to a run down house, Harry wondered what was so important about it when the woman placed her hand onto the gate and a small sign popped out of the ground

'_On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives._

_Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse._

_This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family_.'

Harry knelt before it, this was where his parents had died and he had never been told, why had nobody ever thought to tell him this… Around the sign were messages addressed to him, motivational and supportive, stating how much they were thankful to have him. Eventually after taking a moment to take it in Harry stood and drew his wand, he tapped the sign and willed it to write in dark green text 'May it never happen again'

If the woman disapproved of his vandalism she did not show it "Could you show me to the graveyard please?" Harry asked politely, using both his occlumency and the skills honed at the Dursleys in order to hide his emotions. The woman pointed down the street towards the church and a little stone wall beside it "Thank you, Ms?"

"Bagshot, Bathilda Bagshot" She said as she walked off in the opposite direction.

"I can't believe that was Bagshot, Hermione would have been so jealous…" Harry chuckled as he and Dobby walked to the graveyard

"Harry, Sir?" Dobby asked confused

"That woman is the author of a book called Hogwarts: A history, it was Hermione's favourite book, she would talk about it for ages."

"Who is this, Hermini?"

"Hermione Granger… she was my best friend last year but she died… Halloween seems to be an extremely unlucky time for me."

Dobby nodded and he said no more.

"Why is it you never really question me, Dobby? I've made mithril in front of you many times and you don't even bat an eye" Harry asked, he had been wondering for a while but had never gotten around to asking.

Dobby shrugged and just said "Nobody has ever asked for Dobby for his opinions, Dobby just told to work"

"I care for your opinions Dobby" The elf smiled at Harry but did not reply.

Harry had often found himself drawing parallels between himself and the elf, both had been forced to serve people who seemed to hate them despite depending on them for the work. Both had been treated badly just for being different and both had been taught not to ask questions or question their 'families', but where Harry had gotten books and then magic and learnt to find the answers to his own questions Dobby had gotten nothing.

* * *

The graveyard was full of names that Harry knew or recognised, most from school but there were a few names he recognised from the history books he had picked up, it was a shock to see the grave of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore. He did not actually know who Kendra was but he could guess it was Dumbledore's mother, he did know of Ariana however, he had not known the Dumbledores had lived in Godric's Hollow.

It came as a slight surprise when he suddenly read his parents names on their grave, he knew they must have been buried here but it still came as a shock to see the undeniable truth before him, he sat down before the graves and spent several minutes reigning in his emotions.

Dobby gave him space to grieve and kept walking through the graves, Harry had told him what name to search for and Dobby wanted to help, it would have been easier for Dobby if he had ever been allowed to learn to read but despite this _minor_ setback, he was trying his best.

Eventually after looking at every grave he returned to Harry's side, when he realised Dobby had returned Harry stood after a whispered goodbye towards the grave. He soon found the grave he had actually came to see, the grave of Ignotus Peverell. Above the name was exactly the same symbol that had been on Cadmus' grave, Harry still did not know what it meant or how it related to Dumbledore's own symbol but obviously it was linked to the items of death.

Ignotus had been born 12th July, 1214 and died 16th February, 1372, that would make him almost 157 years old Harry realised, he had died 77 years after Cadmus' death, if the story of the three brothers were to be believed, Ignotus' old age was due to the Cloak keeping him hidden from death.

As he read the grave Harry subconsciously stroked the cloak, he had rarely taken the Cloak off ever since he received it for Christmas, it seemed that along with resisting physical damage it also repelled dirt and grime, meaning that it did not need washing or upkeep, this meant that the Cloak still looked as clean as when he had first gotten it.

Harry paused and took a deep breath, ever since Halloween he had thought of nothing but ways to get Hermione back, he still hoped the Resurrection Stone would work as the story said, just like the Invisibility Cloak. However, he couldn't help but doubt his ability to actually find the Stone, if Dumbledore had been unable to find it in over a century then he had no chance in the few weeks left of summer, not without help at least.

"Dobby, have you ever seen anything like my Cloak before?"

"No master Harry, Dobby has never seen nothing like your cloak… Dobby… Dobby would remember seeing something so… _wrong_ sir" Dobby seemed reluctant to talk about it and Harry couldn't think of a reason why Dobby would be so against the Cloak.

"What is wrong with my Cloak, Dobby?"

"It's… dark and cold… Good magic is supposed to give and create, Muggle cities be bad enough as they do not give or take, they just _is_. Master Harry's Cloak takes and destroys, it is _bad _magic and draws on the good magic in ways not being natural." Dobby said firmly, as he spoke Harry activated his mage sight and looked at the Cloak, he could not see what Dobby described and wondered if Dobby saw the world differently to himself, despite the differences in sight both he and Dobby seemed to agree that the Cloak was different.

Harry felt something appear nearby, it seemed Dobby had sensed it too as he had risen both his hands in front of him and a large, barely see through green shield materialised in front of him and Harry, Harry in turn had drawn his wand, activated his saber and equipped his gauntlet, it made for an impressive spectacle and despite neither having been trained in combat Harry felt like they could have beaten an average witch or wizard at the moment.

Fortunately they did not need to find out if it would have stopped an above average as rather than attack the mystery visitor waved his hand and summoned a ball of light which floated above him, lighting up the graveyard and all their faces. Harry recognised him immediately "Good evening Headmaster" Harry said sheepishly, feeling like he had been caught somewhere he shouldn't have been, despite the fact he had been doing nothing wrong.

Dumbledore only raised an eyebrow at the greeting and only then did Harry register that while he had been distracted by Dumbledore summoning the light wandlessly the headmaster had drawn his wand, although it was pointed towards the ground and not towards them.

"Good afternoon. It seems you have me at a disadvantage, I do not recognise you or your young friend"

"Dobby, can remove my disguise" Harry whispered to the elf, Dobby looked at him and snapped his fingers, Harry felt the elf's magic crawl over him again, the feeling was as unpleasant the second time as it had been the first. Now free of his disguised he was almost the same height as the still disguised Dobby, it seemed he had grown a fair bit while disguised.

If Dumbledore was surprised at seeing Harry he hid it perfectly "Good afternoon Harry, I was not aware you knew how to disguise yourself, I don't suppose you can prove you and your friend's identities?" he said pleasantly as if they where in Hogwarts discussing the weather, not a graveyard with wands drawn ready to attack each other if needed.

"Only Ignotus' Cloak, I assume it is unique same as Antioch's wand. Also my glove which you suggested is one of a kind" Harry said cautiously, holding up his gauntlet so that the Philosopher's Stone caught Dumbledore's light. Dumbledore nodded and held up his wand for Harry to see, using his mage sight he recognised the colour within the Wand as Dumbledore's own magic, Harry relaxed and turned to Dobby and told him "You can lower the shield Dobby, thank you"

Dumbledore walked over to them and noticed they were by Ignotus' grave "Ah, I should have known this would have drawn your attention, now Harry, if I may be so direct, who is your friend?" he asked kindly, smiling down at Dobby

"This is Dobby, he's a friend who kept me safe after I left the Dursley's"

"I don't think I've ever seen you at Hogwarts, Dobby"

"Me is not being a wizard, great Dumbledore sir"

"He's a house elf" Harry said when Dumbledore looked at him questioningly, seeking an explanation

"A house elf? I've never known a house elf be strong enough to hold a shield charm for any length of time, indeed I have known few _wizards_ that can hold a nearly fully opaque shield for any length of time… of course I have never known a wizard capable of making mithril either so perhaps I should stop trying to apply logic to magic around you Harry? Come, follow me… unless you want more time with the grave?"

Harry shook his head and followed Dumbledore out of the graveyard to a small house, Harry would not have noticed it as the home of a man as great as Dumbledore if not for the giant wards protecting the home "Is this your, Professor?" Harry asked amazed at the sheer amount of protections

Dumbledore chuckled "This is where I live when Hogwarts is out for the summer… and it can also be yours should you wish it"

"What?"

"Let's sit down before I answer"

Dumbledore waved his hand towards the front door dismissively, the door unlocked itself and swung open, he turned and winked at Harry he lead Harry and Dobby inside and into a cozy looking sitting room. He indicated for Harry and Dobby towards the well worn sofa while he sat down in an armchair facing the fireplace which he turned so that it faced the sofa. Next to the fireplace was an intricate golden perch with a bowl just underneath, Harry assumed it belonged to Fawkes.

"Would you like anything to drink?" Dumbledore asked, summoning a glass and drink. Harry shook his head wanting to know what Dumbledore meant as soon as possible, Dumbledore took the time to pour himself a drink before beginning his talk.

"I guess this all begins the night your parents died, your mother placed a strong blood protection on you which made it impossible for Voldemort or anyone bearing his mark to harm you. Knowing that Voldemort still had supporters that would be looking for you I expanded that protection onto your only living blood relatives, those being your aunt and cousin. By expanding the protection they lost some of their power, meaning that now rather than stopping Voldemort or his supporters from harming you it now stops them from _finding_ you, there are more ways to damage a child than just physical harm after all…

"I assumed that your aunt and uncle would have cared for you as their own, the nature of the wards meant that nobody with magic could check up on, if I had gone to your aunt's home uninvited or sent someone in my place the wards would have stopping them from entering or collapse allowing Voldemort's followers to find you. The wards also stopped all means of magical tracking, meaning that remotely checking on your through health and well being charms were also impossible."

Dumbledore drew a deep breath and gave Harry time to digest the information.

"The day after your placement at your aunt's home, loyalists to Voldemort attacked the homes of numerous families that resisted the dark lord in search of either yourself or the location of Voldemort. I saw this as proof that I had done the right thing in hiding you away, the years wore on and I never heard from Petunia aside from confirmation that she had taken you in. I did send an old friend to live in Privet Drive to observe you, a squib called Arabella Figg, perhaps you have seen or heard of her?" Harry shook his head, he had never heard of or seen her before, he would have remembered seeing a squib around Privet Drive after all.

"Well she was there to keep tabs on you, however even as a squib she could only get so close to the house without the wards reacting. She told me that you looked safe but quiet, perhaps slightly underfed and dressed in rags, it was then that I began to suspect I was mistaken in believing in the Dursleys. Still, I thought, better safe and unhappy than dead or kidnapped, this would have been just after your 9th birthday. During this time many death eaters had avoided Azkaban, that's the wizarding prison, by claiming they had been forced to join Voldemort or had been given lighter sentences and had been released from Azkaban.

"Some even came to me asking for your location so they could send thank you gifts… some may have been honest but I fear too many were trying to endanger you, as such I would not let your location be known no matter what. By the time your eleventh birthday rolled around things had settled down and we had received your confirmation letter saying you would be attending Hogwarts the following term."

Pausing to take another long sigh Dumbledore continued "I then decided I ought to visit you and to ensure you were prepared for the wizarding world, I was taking a risk even then as the wards could have collapsed if I had been rejected by either yourself or your aunt, however the situation was different enough that I risked it. Firstly you had opened contact with me of your own free will, as such I was able to convince the wards that I had been unintentionally invited. The second reason was that I thought at eleven you would be relatively safe, even if the wards had collapsed when compared with your one year self…

"Suffice it to say that my first impression of your aunt's home was… less than ideal. I realised then that they had never treated you as their own, at least there were no signs of physical abuse. I then got to meet you and I was surprised at how much of myself I saw in you, if you remember you took me to your room and showed me the mithril you had made, I was stunned that you had managed it, I grew hopeful that despite your childhood there was hope for the future."

Dumbledore took the time to drain his glass and continued, slightly hoarse at talking for so long "Finally after all the events of last year I admit I forget your issues with the Dursleys, after meeting you first at your aunt's house and later in Hogwarts I intended to remove you from that home, I hope you will forgive me for that. You never should have been sent back there and as your magical guardian it was my responsibility to ensure your safety and happiness. That leads me to my offer, since you have been investigating the graves of the Peverell's I was wondering if you would like to stay here for as long as you wish. I have a lot of work that will need doing so you may not see much of me but you and your friend are more than welcome."

Harry glanced at Dobby who shrugged, Dobby did not care where they stayed so long as he could keep Harry safe "We'd love to say" Harry said happily.

"Wonderful" Dumbledore exclaimed happily, Harry got the sense that he was genuinely glad and not just saying it to be polite. "Now Harry, would you mind telling me what happened to cause the wards around Privet Drive to fall?"

"Well it started when I found Dobby in my room…"

Harry told Dumbledore the full story all the way up to when they met each other in the graveyard, Dumbledore let him tell the story in full without interrupting.

"So Dobby was able to get through the wards without invitation? I must admit I never even considered that house elves would be able get in of their own free will, I suspect if he had been ordered to warn you he would not have been able to… "

"Dobby needed to warn Harry Potter! He must not go back to Hogwarts!" Dobby said sternly from his spot on the sofa.

Bemused Dumbledore asked "Why ever not, dear elf?"

"There is great danger! If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts he will be in grave danger!"

"Could you tell me what the danger is?" Dumbledore asked slowly, his eyes losing their twinkle and gaining a much harder gaze

Dobby shook his head so forcefully, his ears flapped from side to side "Dobby does not know what the danger _is_, Dobby only be hearing his bad masters saying they be planning something, something that will put Harry Potter in grave danger!"

"While I would feel happier knowing Harry was not in danger, Dobby, I would prefer he return to Hogwarts where the other teachers and I can look after him and attempt to stop this known danger, rather than he not go to Hogwarts and leave the remaining students under that same danger, he would also be under threat of numerous unknown dangers without anyone being to watch over him."

"Dobby would protect him sir!" Dobby said eagerly

"I do not doubt your willingness to protect Harry, but I feel that my teachers do more than just protect students, we show and teach them the wonders of magic and how to apply it to the world around them, we show students how to work alongside others and how to come up with their own answers to life's questions. If you could give some clue over _what_ the danger is I could take steps to stop it."

"Dobby does not know" Dobby wailed, Harry felt quite awkward sitting there as two people he cared for talked about him.

"Dobby, you can't stop me from going to Hogwarts, but surely I would be safer facing a known threat rather than avoid one threat to encounter an unknown one" Harry said impatiently

"Unknown threats, Harry sir?"

"Voldemort's followers still remain at large and outside of Hogwarts they might try to get revenge on their master by attacking Harry" Dumbledore said

Dobby's ears quivered and he looked as if he was about to burst into tears "Harry Potter must be careful then. Dobby will try and find these unknown threats, then Harry can be safe outside Hogwarts!" Dobby then vanished, fading into nothingness from what Harry assumed was what an elf apperating looked like, he was curious about how the elf had managed to apparate out of the house as Harry had detected had many wards that specifically stopped magical forms of transportation in or out.

"That is a very powerful and very loyal elf you have there, Harry. I hope you understand what you did by freeing it?" Dumbledore said

"What do you mean? He was being tortured by his family!" Harry said defensively

"You misunderstand, I fully approve of you freeing him from an abusive family. However a little known detail from house elf history is that the elves that house elves originate from are the result of high elves… _getting friendly _with a fairy. Due to the mixed heritage a house elf's body is not capable of channeling magic like a high elf. Their magical power comes from the fae, which have their own natural, internal magical source much like a witch or wizard but get their main source of magic from any witch or wizard who has unwittingly made a deal with them.

"The house elf enslavement contract works on that principle, it is enough enough of a deal that it lets the house elf draw their magic from the family in return for working for the family. Now a high elf draws their magic from their surroundings which they can then direct, but it never truly passes through them or their bodies. The house elves also have this trait, you may have noticed the magic orbiting around Dobby? That is the fae magic drawing in magic with the high elf magic directing it. Due to their fae origins it has often been theorised that should a house elf become free they would become unstoppable and if I am correct you gave Dobby his own source of magic with your mithril?"

"Yes professor, I did…" Harry said slowly, realising he might have done considerable harm by helping Dobby

"Alas that boat has sailed and we can now only wait and see what comes of it. You should know that it is my opinion after talking with Dobby that he is devoted to you and would do anything you asked of him. I also do not believe that Dobby would do anything that requires him being stopped… Now tell me, what did you find out about the Peverell Brothers Harry?"

Shocked at the sudden change in conversation Harry took a moment to respond, "Well, the first thing I learned was that obviously in Little Hangleton Cadmus is considered something of a village hero for winning the battle there. His two brothers fought alongside him, I think that it is this battle that made the brothers either begin searching for or creating the items of death. I know that Cadmus lost his fiance during the battle and we know he wanted the Stone to bring back 'the woman he was to marry'. I believe Ignotus saw something in the battle that terrified him so much that he felt he needed to have a Cloak capable of hiding from even death itself, since the Cloak also acts as a sort of shield by blocking spells and resisting damage, I think Ignotus must either have gotten hurt, possibly fatally or narrowly missed being hit. Finally I assume Antioch fought someone and either lost or almost lost, making him desire an unbeatable wand. In total I found there was a battle where all three brothers suffered and made them desire the items of death."

"Amazing, my... friend and I never even found out about that battle when we had looked in our youth, where did you hear of it?"

"The library in Greater Hangleton"

"Incredible, it never occurred to us that Cadmus might have would be a well known person in Muggle history as well. You should also know that the term we, that is to say the believers of the 'items of death' call them the Deathly Hallows. Have you been to Diagon Alley to get your school supplies yet?"

"I went to Diagon before coming here but I didn't know the school lists had gone out yet"

"They were sent out last week, I'll have to ask Minerva to send me a copy of yours so that you can get your supplies."

"Oh, I also got to speak with the goblins, they said you still had my vault key sir"

"Did I not give it to your aunt when I came to visit?" When Harry shook his head Dumbledore drew his wand and stood up, he raised his wand until it was level with his eyes then slashed it straight down leaving behind a line in the air, Dumbledore then placed each hand inside the line and pried it apart.

From where Harry sat it looked as if he had just changed the shape of the drawing but when he moved around to Dumbledore's side he saw that within the shape a vault of some sort had become visible, it was as if he had cut into a wall and the vault was on the other side of the hole. Taking a look with his mage sight, Harry instinctively knew this was a rip in reality, each edge of the rip glowed with raw untamed magic and Harry suspected if the magic failed the rip would close, violently, regardless of whatever happened to be in the way.

"I call this a subspace locker, Harry. Vastly more useful and secure than a bottomless bag and it is impossible for anyone other than myself to access it, of course it is rather power intensive and dangerous, but that just adds to the thrill, don't you think?"

Dumbledore held out his hand towards the locker and a golden key flew out of the locker and into Dumbledore's hand which was then handed to Harry. Dumbledore then severed the connection between his wand and the rip and Harry watched as the rift slammed shut and winked out of existence, a small shock wave of magic erupted from where the rift had closed which washed over the entire room, "I love magic" Harry breathed in pleasure as he felt the magic wash over him pleasantly.

* * *

_Here is an idea, in some stories fairies are meant to be either weak or hurt by metal, specifically iron, well mithril could look like shiny iron… perhaps a creature of pure magic like a fairy would be hurt by being touched by something else made purely from magic, such as mithril? Thought for food… _

_This is the longest chapter, almost 200 words longer than the second longest (generation) and it is almost entirely just Dumbledore talking! I am really sorry if the constant mention of Dumbledore breathing or drinking annoyed you but I couldn't think of another way to break up the lengthy explanations, I mean I could have shortened the explanations but in universe I don't think Harry would be satisfied with Dumbledore saying something like "House had wards, now they gone, stay with me?"_


	28. The world carried on

In the sleepy village known as Godric's Hollow, Harry and Dumbledore talked about Deathly Hallows long into the night, the only indication that any time had passed was the '_tick, tock_' of the clock upon the mantelpiece, they planned and plotted and got no closer to discovering the final Hallow.

And the world carried on...

* * *

Far away from them, Lord Lucius Malfoy sat within his manor. He considered the previous year, himself and his son humiliated by an eleven year old child, all his carefully cultivated political capital lost. But he had risen to the challenge and returned wealthier than ever, the Muggles loved the materials his companies produced and it was a simple matter of a few confundus charms to make the Muggle officials think they had received the correct paperwork. The elite of wizarding society had forgotten they had ever banished him once he began throwing his money around, now his temporary exile was a thing of the past.

Except Lucius still remembered and Lucius did not forget, sitting within his hand was a book his master had given his before his disappearance, it held the power to rid the school of the Muggleborn filth, or so his master claimed.

Lucius stared at the book and wondered if he could knowingly endanger the lives of children… Children that went to the same school as his son '_Yes_' the book seemed to say '_Nobody could link it to you and only the children of impure birth will be at risk._'

He needed to get the book into Hogwarts, an owl was too easily traced and Dumbledore kept track over what the owls brought into Hogwarts, that meant it would have to be brought in with the students. He couldn't give this task to Draco, for one the boy was too foolish to be able to pull it off, it would also be too easy to link Draco to himself.

Under Dumbledore the book would eventually be found, that meant Lucius would need to be wise about who he gave it too, the student would need to be gullible enough to trust the book but independent enough to not show it to others, a first year would be best as they would not have a reputation with the school and so any unusual behaviour would go unnoticed. Suddenly a grin spread across his face, he remembered over hearing Arthur Weasley say his daughter would be starting Hogwarts this year.

The Malfoy Lord plotted well into the night, refining his plan until he felt it was full proof, when the Weasleys went to get their Hogwarts supplies he would strike and plant the book, the life of the daughter would need to be sacrificed but that was a risk he was willing to take.

And the world carried on

* * *

The elf known as Dobby appeared on the hill overlooking the death eater's manor, it had been easy for the elf to find the records of those that were convicted of being death eaters. If he wanted he could have torn down the wards protecting the home and slain every person within the home, but he did not.

He knew that if death eaters started dying then the remaining death eaters would hide, even with his almost unlimited power Dobby still had to know where to go to find the death eaters in order to kill them. Instead Dobby slipped through the wards, the owners had never considered an elf might try to break in and so had never bothered to ward against it.

Dobby quickly found the elves bound to the home and freed them the way Harry had freed him, he ordered them to continue as normal but told them that instead of punishing themselves they only gave the illusion of pain, the two elves that had served Lord Nott joined the army of elves loyal to Dobby, each elf waiting for the signal where they would rise up and take their revenge on their owners.

He left the way he had arrived and vanished, seeking the next home of the death eaters, soon they would all die and when that time came Harry Potter would be safe.

And the world carried on.

* * *

The man sat within his cell, for almost 11 years he had been wrongfully imprisoned. He knew not how long he had been gone, having long since lost any concept of time. Slowly he drew himself out of his memories and forced himself to remember that he was innocent, the chill of the dementors did not recede but their hold over the man's mind lessened.

At the way he was deteriorating he doubted he would be anything more than a husk in a few years time, but for now he could remember the good times and hope his godson was living the good life. He had no energy to try and break free, he had lost hope in believing that anyone would be coming to save him. The only thing keeping him going was the few good memories he had left and the spite of knowing his cousin and her husband were waiting for him to die so that they could inherit his family's wealth.

And the world went on…

* * *

_Early chapter, yay! This chapter did not exist until today but I wanted to release a chapter this week and the next chapter is currently around 3300 words long… as today is the last bit of free time I have until the weekend I didn't want to trudge through 3300 words and I was like, "Well I can write a small chapter explaining what was happening in the Harry Potter world that Harry himself would not know about until much later." _

_I came up with the title when I thought "What did the world do while Harry was having his adventures" and I was like "Well it carried on obviously, the world doesn't stop because Harry wasn't paying attention"_

_For those interested I am part of the backstage crew for an amateur dramatic group which has a pantomime happening this week, as such it is an extremely busy time. _

_I am also going to be writing and releasing a one-shot story on an alternate way Harry and gang could have broken into Gringotts in the Deathly Hallows (Book), it will be cannon friendly and will only feature magic / powers that were established in cannon, the title will be "Harry Potter: Time heist", have fun figuring out how they will get the diadem. _


	29. Dumbledore's Home

Overall, Harry enjoyed staying at Dumbledore's cottage. Fawkes had turned up after the second night with his school list, Harry and Dumbledore had decided that they would go to Diagon once the rush for supplies was over and less people would be present to notice Harry. Despite staying in his house, Harry rarely saw much of Dumbledore during the day, he often spent most of the day doing paperwork or talking ministry employees asking for his help or advice. Even Cornelius Fudge, the minister for magic had once asked him for help which Harry had found rather silly, the leader of the wizarding world should be able to think for himself, he thought.

When Dumbledore worked Harry often sat nearby and practiced his magic, Dumbledore sometimes provided Harry with subjects to look into and research. Often they were related to transfiguration but sometimes the subject would be more difficult, such as Alchemy or enchanting. Harry had been delighted to have a chance to further look into alchemy, the library at Hogwarts had only said that alchemy was a rare and difficult combination of Transfiguration and potions, it was possible that there were more in depth book about Alchemy but Harry had never bothered to find out.

The two had engaged in a lengthy discussion about Alchemy, that was until Dumbledore eventually realised he needed to get back to his work and promised Harry that he would find a tutor for Harry so that he could learn the basics of Alchemy over the next school year.

For his part Fawkes seemed to enjoy the extra company, he would regularly ride around the cottage perched on Harry's shoulder, despite the phoenix's large size he was as light as a feather. Harry had noticed that his wand seemed _happier_ when Fawkes was present and Harry had to be extremely careful to control how much magic he put into his spells since his wand seemed to lose its own magical buffer. His wand seemed to be showing off for Fawkes, which as his wand's core was from Fawkes it made sense his wand reacted so strongly to the birds presence.

When away from Fawkes, Harry had begun to feel like his wand was somehow losing its power, ever since Halloween Harry had sensed the connection between him and his wand change subtly, at the time he had not noticed it. He knew his connection was still stronger than most of the students in his year, with his developing mage sight if he concentrated the connection between wand and user became visible, however despite this it saddened Harry to think he was slowly losing his wand's allegiance.

It did not help his mood that every time he saw the Elder Wand he felt a compulsion to strike Dumbledore down and take the Wand for his own, if he concentrated his mage sight on the Wand he could see the tendrils of the inverted magic that leaked from the Wand and stretched towards him. Harry did not know if they sought him because he was wearing the Cloak and sought the Stone or if the Wand sought every witch or wizard that saw it.

When Harry had asked Dumbledore about it, the professor admitted that he was not even aware that the Wand did that, it shocked Harry to be told that he saw more than Dumbledore, upon seeing his expression Dumbledore had told Harry "I learnt to see magic rather late in my life, Harry and out of all magic I have learnt, the ability to see magic was always one of my weaker skills. I have always had to work for my magical power, with a few exceptions such as transfiguration which I find instinctual. From what you have told me you find casting _all_ magic instinctual and I suspect that extends to your Mithril and Mage sight as they are just natural extensions of your magic."

Harry did not just spent his time in Godric's Hollow researching magic, he had also spent some of his time searching for information about his parents and Ignotus Peverell, Dumbledore had offered to assist him but Harry had stubbornly wanted to find out the information for himself.

* * *

Having spent considerable time in Dumbledore's home, Harry had come to the conclusion that Dumbledore had many faces that he showed to the world. Harry called the most common face the 'senile old man', Dumbledore wore this face most of the time and when when it was present he was silly and seemed to go out of his way to make as little sense as possible. The second most common was an extension of the first face, the 'senile teacher', still silly but he now made some convoluted logic.

Dumbledore wore those faces around Hogwarts and Harry suspected they were the only faces that the average student would ever see. The third face a student might see was the 'grandfather', this was Dumbledore at his calmest, he was supportive and encouraging or disappointed but caring depending on the situation. Underneath was the knowledge that Dumbledore truly cared about that individual, Harry felt that despite hiding behind a mask Dumbledore still cared about his students and wasn't just pretending.

The final face Harry had seen was the 'realist', deadly serious and no-nonsense, sometimes still kind and compassionate but there was now steel behind his words, Harry had only seen this face twice, once when Hermione had died and then again at the end of the year when they had fought Voldemort.

Harry had come up with a few theories as to why Dumbledore spent most of his time wearing the 'senile' face, the first possibility was that Dumbledore was honestly senile and this was his only 'true' face, Harry thought this was extremely unlikely, the next theory was that Dumbledore enjoyed not having to be serious and took joy in confusing people, Harry thought this was quite likely.

Another possible theory was that Dumbledore wore that face because it was expected of him to be and act like that, which was unlikely since Dumbledore was not the type of person to change themselves to fit other people's ideas. Next was that people found the senile face the easiest to talk to and as such they were more relaxed around him, this would allow Dumbledore to learn more about the person without being invasive, it also helped him understand and help the person.

However the theory that Harry thought was the most likely was that people, especially young people such as his students, enjoyed being around 'senile' Dumbledore which in turn made Dumbledore happy. Of course it could have been a mix of all of these theories or none of them, Harry did not know the man well enough to tell. Harry doubted that he would have even noticed the different faces the professor wore if not for the fact that he also showed different faces to different people.

His own face was most honest around people he trusts, which was currently just Dumbledore and Bathsheda. While in lessons he was close to his honest face, just more controlling over how much emotion was displayed, outside of lessons, when surrounded by the other students, Harry kept up a wall that he made sure no emotion got shown, even though he still felt them. When he had suffered under the Dursleys he had gone even further and suppressed his emotions so that he had no emotions to hide.

* * *

"I wonder, Harry, if you would mind accompanying me to visit an old friend. His daughter is due to start Hogwarts after the summer ends and from what I have heard she is… different. I feel it would help her to be able to see and talk to a student, someone that could answer her questions far more easily than myself, after all it is no secret that it has been many years since I was last a student myself."

"Sure, I guess I wouldn't mind."

"Excellent. Although I confess that there is also another reason I wanted you to join me. You see when I had to stop my own search for the Hallows and focus on teaching, my friend to the best of my knowledge never stopped searching, as such between the three of us I feel we have a very real possibility of being able to find the third and final Hallow. As each brother only ever held one Hallow I feel I am not mistaken in thinking that only one person may ever find _one_ Hallow, as such if we are to collect the last Hallow we might need a third searcher. His wife died a few years back and as such I do not think it would take much convincing to get him to help us find the Resurrection Stone."

"And if we do find it?" Harry asked suspiciously, he trusted Dumbledore greatly, and if he was being honest cared for the man, but due to his upbringing Harry knew that people rarely did something if it did not benefit themselves, he also did not want to find out what Dumbledore would choose if forced to pick between Harry or the Resurrection Stone.

"Well, then we see if the stories are true and we each attempt to bring back those lost to us." Dumbledore said, surprised that Harry had even asked what they would do with the Stone.

"Yes, but who _keeps_ the Stone once we use it?" Harry noted that over the course of the conversation Dumbledore had transitioned from the senile teacher, to the grandfather and then to the realist, as the faces changed the professor seemed to lose his energy and age before his eyes.

"I was thinking that my friend could look after it, but ultimately I wish for you to have both the Stone and the Wand. I am old, Harry and while I hope to live for many more years I have to be realistic and accept that I was not meant to master Death. You however have many, many years ahead of you, while my friend may not be as old as myself he has only his daughter to care for, I believe his wife was the only other person he cared for."

Harry was shocked, he had hoped to get to use and possibly keep the Stone but he had never desired the Wand, not unless you counted the artificial desire that the Wand placed into his mind, if Harry concentrated he could see the tendril of 'anti magic' that extended from the Wand.

Both Dumbledore and Harry now knew much more about the Elder Wand, Dumbledore had once cast a simple spell using the Elder Wand, all three wands that Dumbledore owned and finally wandlessly at Harry's request. Harry had been surprised at hearing that Dumbledore owned and used three different wands.

Dumbledore's first wand had been Ebony but had been snapped in his fifth year by accident. The Ebony wand had been followed by the Fir wand, which Dumbledore had used from fifth year until just after his apprenticeship under Flamel, he had then moved onto the Hornbeam wand until he had fought and beaten Grindelwald and gained the Elder Wand.

Upon getting the Elder wand Dumbledore had repaired his Ebony wand and had carried all four wands on him, each wand was useful for different situations with the Elder Wand being the most versatile. For example the Ebony wand was good for friendly combat and general transfiguration. During the war against Voldemort, Dumbledore had often used both the Ebony wand in one hand with the Elder Wand in the other.

Despite the Elder Wand being the most powerful Wand ever, Dumbledore had found that it struggled to case subtle magic and resisted casting any magic with the intent to protect, including protecting himself. But without the Elder Wand he would not have the power to withhold Voldemort, Dumbledore had thus been forced to use the Elder Wand to directly attack while using the Ebony wand protected and shielded.

The Fir wand was best suited for teaching and casting extremely difficult or complex transfiguration. While every wand was physically capable of casting complex transfigurations, the Fir wand required the least amount of power to achieve the best result, this allowed Dumbledore show students how transfiguration should be done without using a significant amount of his power to slow down the effect. This wand was rarely used for combat since Dumbledore would rarely have enough time to attempt the overly complex transfigurations that served the Fir wand best.

The Hornbeam wand had served him throughout the war with Grindelwald, according to Dumbledore Hornbeam wands best served people with an obsession, during the war against Grindelwald Dumbledore's obsession had first been obtaining the Hallows and then stopping Grindelwald. After obtaining the Elder Wand his obsession had been considered fulfilled and the Hornbeam wand had lost its power, while it was still a perfectly functional wand it did not enhance or aid Dumbledore's power like the other wands still did.

The only reason Dumbledore kept the wand on him was because it refused to work for anyone other than Dumbledore he had decided to keep hold of the wand as a reminder of the darker times and also as a backup wand just in case he somehow lost the other three. The Elder Wand would leave Dumbledore the moment he was beaten even if he was still capable of fighting although until that happened it would only ever work at full capacity for Dumbledore. The Ebony wand had no sense of loyalty towards Dumbledore and would work for anyone that had a strong belief even if that person had never beaten Dumbledore in a duel.

The Fir wand still served Dumbledore faithfully but would still change its allegiance if Dumbledore ever got defeated in a fair duel. However the Hornbeam would only ever work for Dumbledore and would never stop working for Dumbledore, no matter how many times he got beaten in a duel, even a master wand maker sure as Ollivander would not be able to get the Hornbeam wand to properly work for them. Dumbledore also suspected that if he ever got an obsession to achieve something the Hornbeam wand would 'reawaken' and regain its power.

Harry got the pleasure of watching each wand as it channeled Dumbledore's magic using his mage sight, he decided that the Hornbeam wand was acting like an unbonded wand, it still worked for Dumbledore because he was powerful enough that he could force his magic to work without weakening the spell, but as a result spells cast with the Hornbeam wand required much more power, intent and will than the other wands.

In contrast both the Fir and Ebony wands seemed eager to help and assist Dumbledore in shaping his magic to his intent, this meant that Dumbledore did not have to focus so much on his intent in order to get his spells to be powerful. He could either keep his normal level of intent resulting in a spell much harder to break or concentrate more on his power or will, he could also use less of his power in his spells meaning he could cast very powerful spells in quick succession.

The final wand was of course the Elder Wand, if the Fir or Ebony wands helped Dumbledore guide the magic then the Elder Wand guided his magic all by itself, it seemed desperate to cast magic, especially destructive magic.

Dumbledore explained to Harry that he had to be careful when shaping his intent when using the Elder Wand otherwise even a basic stunner could become lethal. Therefore Dumbledore was unable to operate at his full power even though the Wand belonging to him, it was only when Dumbledore didn't fight the Wand and let it kill could he truly let loose and release his full power in battle.

According to Dumbledore he had only ever done that twice, once was right after Grindelwald was defeated and Dumbledore had to fight the dark Lord's remaining followers, then in the war against Voldemort in 1980, when the numbers of the dead came very close to the number of witches and wizards left fighting Voldemort, Dumbledore had said he had waded through the battlefield, the Elder Wand in one hand and the Ebony wand in the other, the death toll from that battle was the highest of the entire war.

The regular Death Eaters had preferred remaining in one spot during battles and normally depended on the strength of numbers over strategy, during 'the great battle of 1980' Dumbledore had just walked towards the Death Eaters, their spells had just bounced off his shield while the Elder Wand transfigured everything in sight, by the time the Death Eaters realised Dumbledore was no longer holding back it was too late for them and many died from the transfigurations long before Dumbledore's spells ever got close to them. It was only Voldemort's intervention that allowed the Death Eaters to escape, even then Voldemort had needed to focus all his energy on defending himself, the battle had ended when Voldemort had let loose with FiendFyre and used the distraction to escape.

When Harry watched Dumbledore cast wandless magic he had come to the conclusion that the Elder Wand functioned like wandless magic, except it was done with a wand. Harry explained to Dumbledore that when a witch or wizard used wandless magic there was no barrier or resistance, there was only the wizard's magic and the world around them. The world does not like being changed so fights the wizard's magic, which is why magic requires power to function in the first place.

Wands have their own power which is why their cores have to come from magical creatures, the wand uses their own power to fight the magical resistance, allowing the caster to can use more of their own power in their spells, however the wand's magic can bleed into the spells that pass through them, which meant that once the magic left the wand a witch or wizard lost control over their spell. Take for example a simple fireball spell, if Harry cast the with his wand the fireball would fly in a straight line until it either ran out of power or hit something, but if he cast it wandlessly he could guide where the fireball went and even change its intent mid flight, assuming he had the power and endurance to do so.

Since the Elder Wand's magic was in essence the exact opposite of magic, 'anti magic' as Harry thought of it now, it did not change the magical signature of the spell, as such Dumbledore could cast a fireball spell with the Elder Wand and control it as if it were cast wandlessly. But since the power of the Wand was still 'magic' the Wand was able to fight the magical resistance, meaning that the user did not need to spend their own magical supply to fight the resistance themselves.

However, rather than change the spell's signature the Elder Wand seemed to affect the spell's intent instead, much like an evil genie in the fantasy books Harry had read, Dumbledore had to specify _exactly_ what he wanted the spell to do. If he gave the Wand any leeway with his instructions the spell's intent would change. It took a great strength of will to use the Elder Wand without succumbing to its nature, Harry could not think of anyone else he trusted to wield and use the Elder Wand without endangering others other than Dumbledore.

Any spells cast with the Elder Wand was much harder to break compared to when using other wands or wandlessly, it seemed the anti magic of the Elder Wand made breaking the spell much harder, of course when the spell was not cast by the Elder Wand Harry was nowhere near strong enough to break a spell cast by Albus Dumbledore, luckily Harry he had his mithril and gauntlet to draw magic from.

Dumbledore had cast three levitation charms on three rocks of equal weight, each charm cast with either the Elder Wand, the Ebony wand or wandlessly. Harry was able to pull apart the wandless spell relatively quickly and it took him about ten more minutes to break the Ebony wand's spell, however it took him almost an hour and several bars of mithril before he finally broke the Elder Wand's spell.

If it weren't for his mage sight and general magical awareness Harry would never have been able to even break the wandless spell. By learning to use his normal level of mage sight inside such a magically rich environment like Hogwarts, his mage sight had become even more powerful when outside of Hogwarts. Harry could now see past the colours of the magic's signature and he could now see the abstract lines and shapes that made up the spell when he concentrated for long enough. Once he could see the shapes Harry could manipulate his magic to delicately remove or change the shapes, once enough shapes were gone the spell would collapse and break apart like a game of jenga.

When Harry looked inside the charm cast by the Elder Wand he saw the normal shape of a levitation charm and lines of anti magic which held the shapes in place, this was what let the caster keep control over their magic since the magic could bend or adjust the spell without letting it collapse. It also had the effect of making the spell much harder to change if you weren't the caster, Harry had to first break all of the lines of anti magic and then once all the lines where gone he could start manipulating the shapes, but as he worked the line of anti magic started to reform meaning he had to pause his work and break the lines again. This effectively doubled how much magic and time was required to break the spell and Harry knew that if he hadn't been able to see the lines of anti magic it would have been impossible for him to have broken the spell at all.

With his new found enhanced mage sight Harry had tried to look into his cloak but had still not been able to see any further inside, however he did find an interesting fact about his Cloak. A little known fact about magic revealing spells was that they only reveal magic that the spell 'touches' when it does its scan, most of the time that worked perfectly fine since depending on the caster revealing spells revealed almost everything nearby, however if someone was under a large ward, such as those around Hogwarts, then that ward would not be detected by the revealing spell unless the spell hits the edge of the ward.

Harry had come to realise that the reason it looked like the pattern of the Cloak's magical signature was stationary and not attached to the Cloak was because it actually was unattached, somehow the Cloak's magic exceeded the physical presence of the Cloak itself, whenever the Cloak activated it drew upon its magic to perfectly hide anything inside by spreading its magic larger than any revealing spell could detect, possibly even covering the entire planet, it seemed that much like the Wand, the Cloak performed almost impossible feats of magic by abusing most of the laws of magic.

It also explained why the Cloak was impervious to damage, a ward protected an area by spreading the energy of an attack over a large area, the larger the area the more damage could be absorbed at once, by feeding power into a ward it could repair itself. This implied that either the Cloak was self powering, making it impossible for any spell incapable of destroying the world to damage it, or the magic within the Cloak was finite and after absorbing too much magic the Cloak would eventually be destroyed.

* * *

_A lot of talking, a lot of 'the science of magic' _

_In case people are confused over how Harry can know break apart spells for him it is not that different to dismantling his mithril, without his mithril giving him energy he wouldn't be able to do it, if Dumbledore had masked his signature like normal then Harry would currently be unable to see 'inside' the spell and thus unable to break them, if the spell was given more power then Harry would have burnt up before he could have broken it. _

_I am imagining Harry's mage sight as the equivalent of a science student being able to see particles and atoms, that student would sail through most of the basic science lessons since they can physically see why stuff is working, but, for example, being able to see atoms wouldn't help too much when trying to understand something like nuclear fission or rocket science. _

_In terms of Dumbledore's and Voldemort's power levels I consider Voldemort to have way more raw power than Dumbledore, the only reason Dumbledore can fight Voldemort as an equal is because Dumbledore knows more magic and is more conservative with that magic, Voldemort just throws his magic around or uses the strongest spells available while Dumbledore uses the most efficient spell to do one specific thing, as such when he 'let's loose' and uses the Elder Wands true power without holding back he can match Voldemort 1:1, if Voldemort was as efficient with his own spells he would easily beat Dumbledore since he is strong naturally and most likely used rituals to increase his magic beyond what is normal._


	30. The Rook, The Raven and The Crow

**A warning before the chapter begins, this chapter will talk about many different religions, including Christianity, if you take offense to having your religion being considered a fictional story then I suggest either skimming or skipping this chapter, future chapters will not feature religion as heavily as this chapter if at all. **

**Please also note that any reference to the various religions included are what I remember reading or quickly researched for this chapter, in the context of this story any mistakes I made are correct in the story.**

* * *

Dumbledore and Harry left for the Rookery via side along apparition, apparition with a wizard was far different to elf apparition, rather than feel the world spin under you wizard apparition felt like being pulled through a very tight tube. After just one trip Harry decided that this was that it was the worst way to travel, he had thought the knight bus was horrible but the sudden jumps were nowhere near as bad, at least you could sit down on the Knight Bus.

It didn't help Harry's opinion of apparition that the moment they appeared Harry had promptly fallen over and been heavily sick. Upon seeing his student fall over and threw up Dumbledore had chuckled at his distress.

"Ah yes, perhaps I should have said, often people do tend to vomit their first time. I'm sure you'll grow used to the sensation by the end of the day." Dumbledore was kind enough to vanish the vomit from Harry's clothes, Harry decided he would develop a form of teleportation that did not involve being squeezed through tight tubes.

Taking a moment to look around Harry spotted a large building atop their hill, it didn't look like somewhere he would want to live, but if Dumbledore's friend was as eccentric as himself then the castle shaped building might be seen as a perfectly reasonable home.

Harry spotted several black birds flying around the building, he thought they might be crows but considering the name of the home they were most likely Rooks, Harry watched one of the birds as it flew around the building before settling on the ground and pecking at what looked like a floating purple pumpkin.

Looking more carefully Harry spotted several more strange looking plants dotted around the home, to get to the front door Harry and Dumbledore needed to climb up several steep steps that looked to have been cut by hand, the door itself was clearly made up of multiple different types of wood. Dumbledore reached up and tapped his wand on an elaborate bird shaped knocker, the beak of the knocker opened and began to tweet in what could have been song.

The door was opened by a strange individual, Harry would have called him eccentric if he wasn't standing next to Dumbledore, he had bright yellow robes with silver moons that appeared to move around and through the fabric. Around his neck, attached to a silver chain, swung the symbol for the Deathly Hallows. His eyes swept from Dumbledore to Harry and then to his forehead, he turned to Dumbledore and asked "What can I do for you today, Albus?"

"I have a certain letter for your daughter that I wanted to deliver in person… I also came to talk about _other_ things." As he said this Dumbledore reached into his robes and withdrew Wulfric's symbol. Dumbledore had told Harry before they had left that his symbol was a unique variant of the Hallows symbol, it would identify him as a seeker without anyone mistaking his symbol with that of Grindelwald.

"Of course, Come in." The man said cheerfully, ushering them inside the home, Harry was certain that the room he was in was bigger than the building outside.

"Now for introductions, Harry this is my good friend Xenophilius Lovegood, Xeno this is my student Harry Potter" Dumbledore said grandly as he sat down

"A pleasure to meet you Mr. Potter, please make yourself at home while I get my Luna."

He quickly returned with his daughter behind him, when he saw her Harry noticed she had almost the exact same colour hair as her father and had a rather far away look in her eyes.

"Ah, you must be Luna." Dumbledore said warmly once she had sat down across from him "Now I have an important letter to give to you, if you have any questions I am sure Harry will be glad to help you, he will be second year at Hogwarts when we return at the end of the Summer." He reached into his robes and handed over a thick envelope that Harry recognised well, the girl opened her letter and quickly read it over.

Judging by how quickly her eyes were scanning the page she was either a very fast reader or was just skim reading the letter, once she had finished reading both pieces of parchment she handed to her father and then look at Harry curiously, Harry squirmed awkwardly, he looked her in the eyes and realised she was not looking at his scar but at his eyes, he coughed and asked "Do you have any questions?"

"Where is the Crumple-Horned Snorkack located?" She asked, still staring at him unblinkingly. Harry turned to Dumbledore and was annoyed to notice that the man was grinning broadly at him

"Erm, I don't know, I haven't heard of them before…" Harry said slowly

"That's a shame… what about the Blibbering Humdingers?"

"I… don't know? You will have to ask Hagrid"

"Who's that?"

"He's the groundskeeper at Hogwarts, he takes care of all the animals that live around Hogwarts." Harry replied, glad to have a question he knew the answer too.

Luna nodded happily, seemingly asked all the questions she had.

Dumbledore had also noticed that she had finished her questions and said, "Well then, if your thirst for knowledge has been satisfied Ms. Lovegood, then perhaps we should get on with the business we had with you Xeno."

Mr. Lovegood nodded and waved his hand, indicating for Dumbledore to continue speaking

"As you might have guessed, we… that is to say Harry and myself, seek the Hallows, we had wondered if you had discovered anything about them Xeno?"

"I have tracked the Stone of Resurrection through what I believe is its lifetime, we start with the shamans who were known to call upon the spirits of their ancestors. Whether this was achieved through raw magic, rituals or objects such as the Stone of Resurrection I do not know, although I suspect the later. The practice was later adopted by Greek, Egyptian and Chaldean wizards, the stories vary but the general theme is that someone, specifically someone extremely talented, loses someone they care for and try to bring them back."

As Xenophilius talked he waved his wand and conjured illusions that helped illustrate his story.

"One example where this was not the case is Odysseus who, as directed by Circe herself, traveled into the realm of Hades in order to raise the spirits of the dead to gain insight about his impending voyage, the story clearly describes the rituals he has to complete in order to summon a spirit. However the story I find most interesting is that of Asclepius, now he is known as the god of medicine, but before he became a god he was known to bring back the dead. Not bring back the spirits, or raise the dead to do his bidding, he brought them back completely, how he achieved this is unknown.

"Despite the lack of written documentation I can draw some ideas, he was known to heal people by tapping their foreheads with his staff, obviously his staff was magical and most likely his magic's foci, it would therefore make sense if he revived people the same way. If we believe that the Peverell brothers merely found the Deathly Hallows and did not create or receive them then perhaps the staff was in fact the Wand of Elder while the Stone of Resurrection was hidden on his person? Perhaps the Stone only allows the wielder to view spirits and the power of the Wand is what is needed to truly bring back the dead?

"Regardless of how he did it the story goes that Hades did not approve of Asclepius stealing his subjects and so killed him, some stories say that Hades asked Zeus to kill him instead and others say Zeus killed Asclepius of his own volition as he was afraid he would teach others his skills. There is only one other story I could find that describes bringing back the dead in such a complete way, that is the story of Jesus of Nazareth. He was said to have brought his friend, Lazarus back from the dead, how this is achieved is not truly said although one story I came across said 'he cried out to God' which would indicate it was divine power and not his own that revived his friend."

Harry had a feeling Xenophilius was quoting the bible however Vernon and Petunia had never been particularly religious so he was unsure of how accurate Xeno was being.

"This Jesus was said to have performed many 'miracles' which could indicate possession of the Wand of Elder or just a strong connection to divine magic, stories of necromancy crop up here and there but few describe true resurrection, at the same time few speak of the summoning of spirits such as described in the Tale of three brothers… what we do know is that Cadmus Peverell possessed the Stone of Resurrection, we know he tried to bring back his dead love, we also know he was able to summon her spirit but unable to bring her back fully.

"By looking at the stories of Asclepius and Jesus perhaps having the physical body present is necessary to truly bring back the dead, or maybe extraordinary power is needed… Maybe the reviving needs to happen on an auspicious moment? We may never know. But after Cadmus the Stone is almost lost to history, we know Antioch's killer stole the Wand, we also know that Ignotus passed the Cloak onto his son but the tale never tells us what happened to the Stone. I believe Cadmus passed the Stone unto his son, or perhaps a close friend once he had decided to join his love in death, maybe the Stone passed from owner to owner, leaving a trail of death behind it just like its twin, the Wand of Elder.

"Me and Albus had found out that the family Gauntus had appeared in Britain at around the same time Cadmus died and as his son is only mentioned briefly in Ignotus' biography, that suggests that either the son died, unable to care for himself after his father's death perhaps, or shamed by his father's suicide he changed his name. Regardless we have strong evidence to suggest that the Stone ended up in the hands of the Gauntus family shortly after Cadmus' death since they had a short period of being renown for reviving the dead, indeed the head of House Gauntus at the time, Eadmund Gauntus was said to have been killed a grand total of five times before finally staying dead."

* * *

Dumbledore and Xenophilius talked about the history of the Hallows and examples of their powers, Harry added what he knew but compared to the two men who had spent their lives researching the Hallows he knew little in comparison, Luna had extracted herself from the conversation and despite Harry's interest in the Hallows he was considering joining her, but just as he was about to make his excuses Dumbledore called an end to the discussion.

"I fear we will not gain any further insight into the location of the Hallows by reminiscing old tales, as such we must be taking our leave. Before we depart however I would like to ask if you would like to stay in correspondence with us, Xeno?"

"Of course, it is always nice to be able to talk to fellow seekers, although I have become aware of the fact that some of my mail is being read before it reaches me, no doubt they are reading my letters so that they may find discover the location of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack before I can tell anyone else." Xeno said joyously, apparently unfazed at the idea of someone reading his mail.

"Perhaps we should use code names then? Perhaps your code name could be Rook after the bird?" Dumbledore said jovially

"Ohh yes, I like that, you should be called Raven then, since they are the most intelligent of birds."

"An excellent idea, perhaps Harry could be called Crow to keep with the Corvid theme?"

Harry nodded to show he was fine with the name, truthfully he did not care and just wanted to go back to Dumbledore's home so he could do something, such as read or practice magic.

"Well then, henceforth we shall refer to each other as the Rook, the Raven and the Crow! When shall we three meet again?" Dumbledore asked with a twinkle in his eye as if he had just told a joke.

Whatever the joke was Xeno seemed to have gotten it for he chuckled and said "In thunder, lightning, or in rain I should imagine." both men chuckled some more as Harry stared at them in confusion.

* * *

_This is the first chapter since 'The Philosopher's Stone' which was not fully written, I had stock piled mostly complete chapters meaning I didn't need to write much over Christmas and I didn't have the time to write much since, as such this chapter was only 3 sentences this morning… it did not help that I made this chapter almost entirely history based meaning lots of research and wiki reading, fortunately what will probably be next week's chapter has been almost entirely finished since 'The Philosopher's Stone' but I needed the story to progress so far before I could release it._

_Year two for Harry is fast approaching, either 1 or 2 chapters away depending on how I feel, year two will also not be as long as year one since first year was Harry discovering all he could, he now believes he has a fairly solid understanding and so he will just spend his year studying, if you want me to go into detail on Harry's second year now is the time to tell me before I get to writing it._

_(For Eadmund Gauntus, the name Eadmund is an old English name that became Edmund, it is not a spelling mistake. Likewise for Harry's codename of Crow I am using the Common Crow as reference, so if you realised that a Rook and a Raven are both actually types crows anyway kudos to you I guess.)_


	31. Alchemy

"Ah, so here he is, the famous Harry Potter. Albus told me you were interested in learning about the fine art of Alchemy, is that true?" Harry turned to see an old man enter the room. After his discussions with Dumbledore they had decided to see how Harry got on with a tutor before hiring one year round.

"Yes sir, we got talking about it over the summer and he said he suggested I learn from an expert"

"Flattery will get you nowhere boy… although it is appreciated." Here the old man gave Harry a wink and a smile, Harry felt himself smile in return. Whenever he met someone else with an interest in magic as deep as his own he was at his happiest. Harry took a moment to inspect his new tutor, he looked old but Harry guessed he was slightly younger than Dumbledore, but with magic being taken into account the man could be several decades younger or older.

"Now, I want you to understand something before we begin. There are three reasons that I agreed to mentor you in alchemy, the first is that you seemed genuinely interested in the art rather than thinking about what it can do for you. The second reason is that I am old and dying, I would die happy knowing that at least one more person, especially one so young, knows all I can teach and that when you reach my age you will have passed on all _you_ know. The third and final reason is that you wear my Stone upon your finger and if you are to wear it you should learn to _use _it. In all my years of study I have not found a true limit to the power of the Stone."

"Wait, you're Nicolas Flamel! The creator of the Philosophers Stone?" Harry asked in shock

"Of course… did Albus not tell you who I was?" Flamel asked humorously

"No, he didn't, it's very nice to be able to meet you, Mr. Flamel" Harry said formally, thrilled to have met one of his idols in person.

"None of that, you will call me Nicolas if I am to be your mentor in alchemy. For this year I will be teaching you about the basics of both alchemy and wider magic, what you will be learning is public knowledge, so I will not require an oath of secrecy. Should you wish to learn more about the art of alchemy once we finish then we will agree upon an acceptable oath. Is this fine with you?"

Harry nodded, he had suspected he would be taking an oath since alchemy was one of the few magical subjects that needed to be taught one on one, from what Harry could understand a student could not just sit down in a classroom and learn how to do alchemy. You could only learn alchemy by _doing_ alchemy and even the simplest alchemical experiment could go disastrously wrong so the student needed to be under constant observation.

"Excellent, now the first thing you will learn is not actually alchemy at all. Today you will learn about magic, what it is and how witches and wizards use it. In order to understand alchemy you need to have a wide understanding of the magic behind it after all. The first thing you need to understand is that what you learn under the Hogwarts professors is, in a sense, magic, however it is not true _Magick_. The best way to understand is to imagine different magicks as different languages, the arts taught within the magicks are just accents or dialects and are called magic.

"Charms is not the same as transfiguration, however they are both the same magick, the majority of magick you learn at Hogwarts and the magick most wizards know about is known as Verbarn. Verbarn magic roughly comes from the Latin translation of 'words', which can confuse people as Verbarn magick can be done wordlessly, would you like to guess why it is still called Verbarn magick?"

"Is it because even when done wordlessly, a witch or wizard is still mentally thinking of the incantation?" Harry knew from his own personal study of magic that words were not needed to cast magic but gave the user greater control over the intent of their spell, meaning the spell would require less raw power to be cast.

"Very good, yes as you said Verbarn magick is magic often found where an incantation is required in a spell. In order to cast any magic from the Verbarn family you require some form of incantation, if there is no incantation then it is not Verbarn magick. I should also note that for the purpose of this discussion I will refer to Magick as the overarching force behind each family while magic is how the family impress themselves upon the world, it is not a truly accurate description but it will do for this explanation"

"What if the spells goes wrong? As in, what family does failed magic belong in." Harry asked

"A spell that fails is seen as a failed attempt at all magicks and as such does not exist within any of the families" Nicolas replied "Someone cannot try to cast Verbarn magick and end up with another family of magick. Magic is needed to power all the spells within the magick families and it is the same magic for all. It is the same force regardless of what it is used for and despite what some may say there is no change in difficulty between the various magick families. However the the higher families do have much greater requirements and are easier to fail and more destructive if they do.

"The second magick family is Loquela, meaning speech or tongue. The most notable and well known Loquela magic is any magic that deals with translating between languages, at Hogwarts this is seen in the arithmancy and rune classes. Now runes are technically a mix of Loquela and Verbarn magicks, runes do not require incantation to be formed but when activated they form the incantation, they are also a translation of the world around us."

Harry nodded, familiar with the principle of runes since Professor Babbling had explained them to him when they had first met.

"It is important to know that some magic can exist within several families, for example a translation charm is first and foremost a charm with an incantation meaning it should belong in the Verbarn family, however it deals with translation and understanding another language, which lies within the Loquela family. For alchemy, knowing the difference between the magick families and how they overlap or interact is vital. But for other areas of magic knowing the difference is essentially pointless, a spell does not care if it belongs in the Loquela or Verbarn family, it just _is_. In alchemy magic can only be formed within just one family so you would need to look at what you want in the application and the formation. A translation spell _forms_ itself in the Verbarn family, once completed in then shifts into the Loquela family to _apply_ itself."

"Earlier you said that someone can't cast magic in one family and end up in another" Harry said confused

"Indeed, when casting the magick, the spell has to remain solely in one family, however once it is fully formed it can shift into any family. It does take a fair bit of power to move between families which is why translation spells can be very taxing on the caster. A good example of this in reverse is by looking at any ability with the word 'tongue' in it, take for example Parseltongue. The caster starts their Parseltongue magic in the Loquela family, let us say they cast a flame freezing spell, despite being an incantation it is being translated and understood so it remains in Loquela, once formed it moves into the Verbarn family to be applied. In a sense Loquela turned the flame freezing spell into a format Verbarn could understand and then cast through Verbarn. That is why magic is taught in Latin, it is the closest translation to the true language of magic and thus requires the least translation. If you were to try and cast a spell in French or English it would require much more power and will."

"What exactly is Parseltongue?"

"Ah, Parseltongue is most well known as the ability to talk to serpents, a skilled speaker can also tap into Parsel magic, which includes the power to replicate any magic or abilities from a creature within the Serpentes genus. Most common are of course snakes, although some dragon breeds and wyverns are also within the genus. I believe it also makes them immune to other Parseltongue magic, which of course includes the creatures within that genus.

"Now the third family of Magick is the one I personally know the most about, the magick of the Arcane. The name arcane means 'understood by few' and eventually, you will be one of the few in the know. The arcane arts include alchemy, potions and astrology. The arcane arts are the second most dangerous of the magick families and can go disastrously wrong. If a Verbarn spell goes fails it can only ever kill the caster, if an arcane spell goes wrong it could potentially destroy the entire country."

Harry accepted the warning, knowing that Nicolas wasn't lying.

"The arcane arts are perhaps the hardest to define, true to their name the only easily identifiable aspect of each art is that very few people know about them. For many that is an acceptable classifier and they leave it at that, but I do not settle for something so vague. In my experience, the arcane arts are when the magic forms within an external force while the intent comes from the caster. The previous two families however form the magic within the caster or their focus, it is important to note that runes are seen as a magical foci, any guesses as to why?"

"Because runes carry the casters magical signature just like a wand while a potion just takes the power of the caster without taking on their signature?"

"Excellent, yes that is exactly the reason. For example in potions, the magical power comes from the user but the potion's intent is formed within the cauldron, the magical intent of the ingredients also help shape the potion. Astrology is actually almost the exact reverse, the intent of the universe shape the magic and witches and wizards have to learn to overcome that external intent. You will need to work on your astrology when we start on alchemy since every alchemical reaction is influenced by astrological magic.

You will also find it would also get you bonus points in your potions papers."

Here Nicolas winked at Harry who couldn't help smiling, he found himself liking the old man

"You might also be interested to know that the oldest department of the ministry of magic was made specifically to discover the mystery of the arcane, suffice it to say they have found little." Nicolas chuckled and took the time to have a drink

"We will talk more about the arcane at a later date, for now we will move onto the next and final family you need to worry about, the divine magick. This is considered the oldest form of structured magic and references to this magick can be found throughout history, most well known are the Greek, Roman or Egyptian divine magicks. There are many other examples of divine magic but those are the three I personally have the most knowledge of, they are so well known that even today muggles learn about the myths of them, you could also say that all the other magick families lie inside divine magic and Loquela magick translates all magic into divine."

Nicolas walked over to a nearby bookshelf and pulled out a book on the Greek gods, he opened it to a page describing some of the gods and handed it to Harry.

"Divine magic is normally described as tapping into the powers of the gods from old, how true this is I do not know. I did not dabble with divine magic all that much so I do not feel competent enough to comment on that opinion, what I can confirm is that divine magic is real and does indeed work. I consider divine magic the perfect mix of Verbarn and Arcane magick. After a preparation ritual, a witch or wizard invokes the essence of a god of old and can channel that god's power through themselves and into the world around them, every time they wish to tap into this magic they need to go through the ritual specialised to each god or deity. True masters of the art can not just tap into the power but keep hold of it for the rest of their lives, this is often known as hosting the god's essence and once a witch or wizard becomes a host they can use that god's power without needing to go through with the ritual.

"Tapping into a god's power is extremely dangerous and requires the casters magic to either match or exceed the divine magic that had been called forth, if the casters magic can not match the divine magic the caster will burn up. The only way to tell if the caster can match the magic is once the divine magic has been called, there is no way to test beforehand. This is why the entire family is under a blanket ban, making it illegal to be taught as the ministry found that many students were going through with the process and dying, however it is still not illegal to _use_ divine magic and under my tutelage you will at the very least learn how to recognise divine magic."

Harry got the sense the Nicolas resented the ban on divine magick and he would be learning more than just recognising the family.

"As you should be able to tell hosting the god's essence is far more dangerous than simply tapping into their power, the magic of the host has to always remain greater than the divine magic and once hosted there is no way for a witch or wizard to give up that divine magic, they are stuck with it until they die. _Some_ people believe that the benefits gained from this are worth the risks… I disagree, which is why I have only ever experimented with the simplest of divine magic. The benefits of divine magic, both tapped and hosted is that once cast the magic is nearly impossible to stop, the only way to fight divine magic is with divine magic. That is not to say that divine magic is _unstoppable _as a skilled witch or wizard can take command of the divine magic and focus it on easier targets. I once saw a witch fight the power of Vulcan, god of fire, by surrounding herself in water and pointing the essence of Vulcan towards the nearby forest, the forest was burnt to the ground but she escaped unscathed."

"Could a witch or wizard theoretically tap into the essence of two gods at the same time?" Harry asked curiously

"Theoretically… yes they could… However, in reality it is impossible, when I used divine magic in my youth it took all my power to contain just one divine force, if I had tried to tap into two I would have been incinerated instantly. However two divine forces can be combined with one sole purpose, even if they are controlled by two casters. Divine magic is not just tapping into a god's essence however. Fiendfyre is divine magic but can be cast instantly without any ritual, theoretically a witch or wizard could cast fiendfyre then another divine spell such as obscura aquam, the dark water spell and the two conflicting powers could be contained by one person, of course it would take a considerable amount of power and concentration to maintain two extremely powerful pieces of magic simultaneously."

Harry shuddered as he remembered the fiendfyre he and Dumbledore had fought at the end of the year, he could well believe that the magic was divine.

"The simplest way of explaining the difference is this; Verbarn is memorising the name of magic and calling it by its informal name, Loquela is calling the magic by a different name and receiving the same result, Arcane is understanding the magic and forming it elsewhere and Divine is asking the universe for a favour. One of the reasons Divine magic is so hard to control or stop is that there is no resistance. As you may or may not be aware the world doesn't like being changed by magic, as such when casting all magic has to fight this resistance, divine magic is changing the very magic of the world, like adding dye to water once formed it takes a much higher force to undo."

* * *

Nicolas turned up once a week to talk magic with Harry, under his tutelage Harry felt he had a much greater understanding of magic, he had not been taught any practical magic yet, only theory. He had also not learned any more about alchemy, they had instead focused on learning the magic that alchemy needed to be done safely.

Harry found learning Nicolas extremely difficult since unlike in Hogwarts he couldn't just use his mage sight to see how the magic worked or already had previous experience in understanding the magic, he found the change refreshing and was delighted to finally be challenged.

Dumbledore kept giving challenges to Harry for him to complete alongside the revision set by Nicolas, on top of that Xenophilius kept in regular contact as 'Rook', he and Dumbledore received weekly updates on what Xeno had done to try and find the Hallows, he had tracked the Wand to last being seen by someone named Gregorovitch but wasn't about to find it since, he had not found anything about the Cloak, the Stone he had tracked down to an heir of Slytherin claiming to have the power to bring back the dead. They had not told Xeno that they had the Wand and Cloak but Harry thought he had a right to know, Dumbledore seemed to disagree however.

They had also gone to Diagon Alley and collected the supplies Harry needed for his next year, there was a suspiciously high number of Gilderoy Lockhart books on his list, when he asked he revealed that Lockhart would be the Defense teacher for the year "I can't say I'm too pleased to have hired him but he was the only one to apply, or at least the only new person to apply."

While in the alley Harry had dropped into Ollivander's.

"Ah Mr Potter, I did not expect to see you so soon. What can I do for you today?"

"I wanted you to check on my wand, I can feel my connection with it weakening, I think it's still very strong but I remember you saying I might need another wand and I wanted to know how long I have left."

"I fear you misunderstood my warning, that wand will always serve you, but over time the bond will weaken, eventually you will find another wand will serve you better than your current wand. But I will gladly look over your wand."

Harry handed over his wand, relieved to know he wouldn't lose his wand's loyalty.

"Ah, you have taken good care of it I see, although you have been over powering the wand, you need to give it time to naturally the magic stored within it… I will not ask how you have managed to power it almost non-stop since I sold it to you last year… you are dealing with very strong magic, Mr Potter, I hope you can handle the amount of magic you push into your wand when casting. Overall your wand is in excellent condition, try to give it time to cool down and I would suggest employing a softer touch and your wand should last for years."

* * *

Before Harry knew it the summer was over and he and Dumbledore were walking across kings cross towards platform nine and three quarters, they could have apperated to the platform but Harry was determined to avoid apparition at all costs. As such they had taken the Knight Bus from Godric's Hollow to the station, the bus was filled with other students going to school, they went unnoticed however as Harry had cast a weak notice-not that ensured neither of them got any attention.

However even the notice-not did not stop the Muggles noticing Dumbledore, he was wearing a muggle suit instead of his normal robes, unfortunately the suit probably went out of date when Dumbledore was Harry's age, wanting to avoid further attention Harry hurried over to the barrier and tried to go through. It came as a surprise when rather than slip through he bounced of the now solid wall, shocked it took him a moment to look at the barrier with his mage sight and see the intricate spider web of white magic.

Harry couldn't see why it wouldn't let him pass until he looked deeper and saw pale lime bars crossing behind the white magic, Harry didn't recognise the signature and turned to Dumbledore for help. The headmaster had already identified the problem by the time Harry had turned to him and he had that twinkle in his eye, the twinkle he got when he was enjoying a good joke.

"Figured it out yet, Harry?" Dumbledore asked

"No, I mean I've found the magic stopping people passing through but I didn't recognise the signature"

"Have you learned to identify magic without physically looking yet, Harry?"

"Sort of, I haven't gotten it to full awareness but I can see magic in my periphery"

"Well then, might I suggest looking for the magic signature in the rafters, about 5 feet to my left."

Harry concentrated and cast his gaze behind Dumbledore, it was extremely hard but eventually Harry became aware of another aura.

"But that's my signature, how can someone have my signature?" Harry asked surprised

"Look deeper my boy."

Forcing himself to look deeper he realised there was a second signature behind the first, at first he didn't recognise it but it was clearly a healthier colour of Dobby's signature, which meant the pale lime magic was what Dobby's magic looked like when cast. Obviously his yellow blended with Harry's green to make a new colour.

"If half the magic is mine then I should be able to control it right?" Harry asked cautiously.

"It is worth a try, suffice to say if it is not the case I am confident our combined efforts will unravel the magic anyway."

Turning to the barrier Harry searched for the lime magic, he found it quickly now that he knew where to look. It was fairly simple for Harry to tap into the intent of the block and removed its intent, ending the spell. Cautiously, Harry placed his hand against the barrier, rather than collide with the barrier Harry's hand passed through, grinning Harry walked through the barrier and onto Platform nine and three quarters.

* * *

_This chapter was quite severely delayed mostly because I didn't have time to work on it, which is why I will be going back to release chapters on a Friday rather than Thursday._


	32. The Occlumencer

Platform nine and three quarters was just as Harry remembered, he quickly boarded the train in order to avoid what few crowds had appeared this early and searched the compartments for one that was empty. Eventually he found Luna reading her father's magazine, she was the only one in her compartment so he asked "Heya Luna, are these seats free?"

Luna beamed and replied "Oh yes, I wasn't expecting anyone to sit with me."

Harry took the window seat across from Luna and gazed out of the window, he saw a family of redheads appear and figured it must be the Weasleys. They only just got on the train when the doors shut and the whistle blew, as the train rolled out of the station Harry watched the parents enviously as they waved and were left behind.

Shortly into the journey the compartment door was opened by a small red headed girl, Harry didn't recognise her and assumed she was a first year. Judging by her hair she was the sister Ron had sometimes mentioned, back when they had been friends.

"Hi Luna, could I sit here since everywhere else is full…"

"Of course, it's just me and Harry"

"Harry?" The girl asked confused, she glanced around the compartment and Harry chuckled when her eyes glanced right over him, he realised he hadn't dispelled his mild notice-not. He looked at Luna and assumed the girl had only noticed him because he had drawn attention to himself.

"Hello" Harry said, waving his hand and subtly dispelling his charm.

"Oh, hello, I didn't see you there, I'm Ginny Weasley." Ginny said shyly, sitting down beside Luna.

Harry knew she was expecting him to provide his surname too but he was weary of revealing his full identity, considering how the other students had reacted last year he wanted some time to be treated normally. Instead he nodded and withdrew his charms book for the year and looked at each of the charms they would be learning.

Ginny dismissed his rudeness and began talking to Luna excitedly about Hogwarts. Some time into the journey Harry became aware of Luna calling his name, he put down his book and looked at her expectantly.

"Ginny wanted to know what we would be learning as first years." Luna explained patiently.

"Depends on the subject, I found potions is mostly practical since Professor Snape believes you should be doing the theory in your own time. Astrology however is almost entirely theory based for the beginning half of the year then after half term you swap to practical, Transfiguration and Charms is a mix of both and history of magic is taught entirely with lectures."

"What about defence?" Ginny asked curiously

"I wasn't allowed to take defence in my first year and I would assume you won't be allowed either."

"Oh, that's a shame, I was looking forward to learning how to capture the Caerbannog Lepus." Luna said, looking very disappointed.

"Doesn't Lepus mean rabbit?" Harry asked, unsure of his latin translation

"It does" Luna nodded and went back to reading the Quibbler.

Harry glanced at Ginny and saw she was holding back laughter, Harry shook his head at the odd behaviour and decided to hide behind his book again.

* * *

The train ride was otherwise uneventful and soon they had arrived at Hogsmeade, when Ginny tried to open the door of their compartment she found it had been locked, Harry looked at it and immediately saw the magic of Dobby. He reached out with his magic and quickly broke the elf's magic, he then ushered the girls through and when they waited for him he said "You two go on, I'll see you in the great hall for your sorting."

Once they were gone Harry called for Dobby, instantly the elf appeared making Harry wonder if he had been there the entire time.

"What can Dobby be doing for great master Harry Potter?" Dobby asked uncertainty, he also refused to look Harry in the eye.

"The first thing you can do is stop trying to keep me from Hogwarts, I can easily break your magic and you're only wasting our time. I'm here now and I'm not leaving, but if you still want to protect me how about alerting me whenever this danger appears so I can be prepared? That way I'm safe and you're not wasting your time trying to stop me?"

Dobby looked hesitant but finally nodded and miserably said "Dobby supposes he could do so…"

Harry breathed out a sigh of relief, he had already gotten tired of tearing down the elf's magic.

"Brilliant, could you also keep an eye on Luna and Ginny for me? I don't want them to be hurt either."

The elf nodded solemnly, revived to have sorted out the issues with Dobby Harry took a moment to properly look at the elf. When he had last seen him, Dobby's ears had been droopy while his skin had looked like grey paper.

Now however the elf seemed healthier, his ears stuck up more and were springier, his skin had gained a light orange colouration and his ribs were less pronounced. It was obvious that the elf had gained some much needed weight and he carried himself with more confidence.

The most significant change that Harry noted was that the elf had grown over a foot taller, the elf could now pass as a small first year. When he looked at the elf with his mage sight and looked past the magical auras he found Dobby's body was now saturated with magic, looking closely he saw that the magic was being carried along the elf's veins from a pool of magic right where the heart would be.

Harry assumed since the elf did not need to eat or drink his body used magic for sustenance, with the increase in magic the elf's body grew healthier. In order to properly use that magic it needed to be pumped around the body, which meant that either elves did not have blood or that the magic was carried by the blood.

He noticed Dobby shuffling nervously under his attention and so dropped his gaze and said "Thank you Dobby, I guess I'll see you around then."

The elf nodded and disappeared silently, Harry quickly gathered his stuff and left the train. Almost all the students had already left the station but there was still enough left for Harry to figure out where to go. Upon finding the carriages Harry wondered what the skeletal horses were, when he Looked they all had a strange grey magic which swirled placidly.

Picking the carriage with only another sole Ravenclaw he settled down for the journey, he guessed the boy was at least a sixth year judging by his size, Harry was planning how he would get the carriages to move without the horses when the boy started speaking.

"No need to guess what house you're in." The boy said "Have you figured out how to get the carriages to move yet?"

"Some sort of conjuration or charm, considering how long these carriages have been used for I would imagine I would need to employ some sort of air spirit or earth elemental."

"Ah, but a movement charm couldn't be applied before being used since the carriages only move at the end of term and Hogsmeade trips and elementals aren't safe around children."

"Dumbledore could enchant the carriages rather than charm them, that way a finite wouldn't work."

"He could, but then it would also take much longer to reapply the enchantment, which seems fairly redundant if the carriages aren't used that much. I don't know all that much about conjuring or charms to be honest, my main area of knowledge is potions, I wonder if you could make a potion that makes the carriages move?" The boy said charmingly

"Maybe a momentum potion that could make the carriage move but that wouldn't let the carriage stop or wait, you would need a way to apply the potion when needed. I suppose a rune scheme could then detect people sitting in the carriage and apply the potion when someone sits down…"

"I'll tell you what, I'll invent a potion that can move things as needed, I'm Chester Davies by the way, no need to ask who you are."

Before Harry could think of anything else to say the carriage rounded a bend and the entrance hall came into view, he quickly left the carriage and followed the students into the great hall. He sat down in his normal spot and pulled out his potions book, he had already read it over but after his conversations first with Luna and Ginny and then with Chester he wanted some quiet time.

Unfortunately the hall was filled with excited children who hadn't seen each other for weeks, it was a miracle they could hear each other over the din Harry thought. Finally after what felt like a lifetime the first years arrived and got sorted, Luna got sorted into Ravenclaw while Ginny joined her brothers in Gryffindor.

Soon the feast was over and Harry was allowed to leave, he took some of the shortcuts and was one of the first to reach the common room, as such he had to answer the riddle.

_"A natural state, I'm sought by all._

_Go without me, and you shall fall._

_You do me when you spend,_

_and use me when you eat to no end."_

'A natural state sought by all, that could be peace. Go without and you shall fall, I guess that means you will die, could be air or food… I don't know what it is when spent. Use me when you eat to no end… What do you use when eating? Well you die if you eat to no end, that's why people say you need to have a balanced diet… actually don't shops call their money their 'balance' and without balance you fall over… a natural state of being is balanced!'

"The answer is balance" Harry said, confident that he had found the answer.

The other Ravenclaws began discussing his answer but Harry had already scurried through the portrait hole and up to his dorm.

* * *

When Harry awoke the next morning he took a moment to drink in the magical atmosphere of Hogwarts, he tentatively activated his mage sight and was immediately blinded by the intensity of the magic. His sight had become strong enough to work even through his closed eyelids which meant that even when he shut his eyes he was still overloaded with information.

Eventually he grew used to the amount of magic and was able to see more than just the blinding white of Hogwarts magic, once he had achieved this he got up and began preparing for the day ahead.

Down in the common room he ran into Luna, who seemed to have been waiting for him. Together they went down to the great hall in silence, during their breakfast Flitwick arrived and began handing out the time tables. Once he received his, Harry noticed that every Wednesday he had a lesson marked tutor, it seemed his alchemy lessons would be continuing.

Seeing potions as the first lesson of the day Harry made his way down to the dungeons after making sure Luna knew where to go for her Charms lesson, seeing as the Slytherin's were beginning to line up outside Harry assumed he shared this class with them for the year. This changed very little in terms of lesson structure, although Snape no longer started their lessons by quizzing Harry on his potions knowledge.

Once the lesson ended Snape called out "Potter, a word." Harry was unsure of why he was being kept behind, perhaps Snape had moved their contest of knowledge to after the lesson for the benefit of the other students. When Harry made eye contact with Snape he felt the professor's magic brush against his mind, he quickly enforced his occlumency shield and forced Snape's magic away.

"Impressive, when I sent you that book for Christmas I doubted you would be able to learn how to form even a simple barrier. Tell me, how did you manage to throw me from your mind?"

"I felt your magic and forced it away."

Snape nodded, seemingly impressed with Harry's skill "Unorthodox, I personally prefer to trap a legilimencer within my mind, I understand the Headmaster forces a legilimencer to relive their worst fears. The Dark Lord tried to invade his mind once, that was also the only time he tried. Come back tomorrow after dinner and I'll help you develop your shields so that you can thwart an attack without realising. You may go."

* * *

Harry knocked on Snape's door tentatively, after his third knock the door swung open to reveal Snape behind his desk.

"You are here to learn the subtle art of occlumency, should you prove successful then I shall teach you the more obtuse art of magic. Which some may mistakenly call dark. Your current shields are passable, in order to improve your shields I will repeatedly attempt to penetrate them. Prepare yourself!"

Snape quickly drew his wand and made a tapping motion, instantly Harry felt the professor's magic crash against his own. He saw memories begin to flicker across his mind and Harry quickly raised his shields, it kept Snape's magic at bay for a moment before shattering.

Reaching out with his magic he tried to force Snape's magic away, at first it seemed he would win but then the full weight of Snape's magic slammed into him, once more he began reliving memories before Snape withdrew and Harry found himself back in Snape's office.

"That was an acceptable first try, restraining my magic was surprising but unfortunately you proved too weak to keep it going. Once you regain your energy we will try again, however this time try to shape your magic into a shield to withstand or redirect my magic."

It was late at night before Harry finally left the man's office, he had developed a massive headache but he could now withstand Snape for twice as long and had some input over what memories were seen. They had arranged to meet twice a week and Harry hoped soon he would be strong enough to either completely stop Snape or make fake memories, something which Snape had mentioned as a possible idea, an idea which Harry had decided to learn.

* * *

_Bonus points if you know which rabbit Luna is referencing in the beginning. _


	33. Defending against the forces of darkness

Bathsheda walked into Harry's workshop cautiously, she didn't want to be caught by any trap Harry might have placed since they had last met. When she entered she saw Harry looking at two plastic cups connected by a piece of string, both cups were freely levitating which was quite an achievement for a student just starting their second year.

"What've you got here?" She asked curiously, she had learned to accept Harry's tendency to come up with completely random ideas that somehow still worked.

"It's a muggle toy, if you speak into one cup the noise comes out the other, regardless of physical distance."

"Okay, why are you looking at them then?"

"Well I'm trying to figure out how they work, I know they do work but I can't understand how. I can only assume the noise is carried along the string since if the string isn't taut then they don't work. But I was thinking, if I could find out how they work I might be able to replicate the effect with magic."

"Okay?"

Harry smiled apologetically having realised that Bathsheda had no idea what he was talking about.

"Imagine your in your classroom and you need to talk to Dumbledore, rather than send an owl or go up to see him you could talk into something like this cup and Dumbledore would hear it through his cup in his office. You could then talk to each other securely and easily."  
"Sounds like a fire call…" She said slowly

"Well yes, but this isn't limited to having a fireplace, say you're in the grounds, you wouldn't have a fireplace then."

"Sounds useful…" It was clear that Bathsheda didn't understand the significance of what Harry wanted to do

"Okay, put your ear to that cup over there." Once Bathsheda had done so Harry whispered into his cup "Can you hear me?" Bathsheda jumped and said "I could hear you!"

Harry chuckled "Yeah, now imagine that but over any distance, no need to stick your face in the floo."

* * *

"Can you all see me? Can you all hear me?" Lockhart grinned at the class, rather stupidly or so Harry privately thought.

"I thought we'd start today with a little quiz, nothing to worry about, just to see how well you read them and taken in." Again with the stupid smile, Lockhart went down the desks passing out the tests, Harry wondered why he didn't use magic like the other teachers, all it took was a simple levitation charm on each paper.

Harry glanced at the first question and then the next, he quickly skimmed through the entire paper until he got to the end, each and every question was about Lockhart, not the subject. It was a small comfort that he knew all the answers to the questions.

"Tsk tsk, barely anyone remembered that my favourite colour is _lilac_… although Ms. Brown got all but one of the answers correct. Good girl" Lockhart paused to give a big wink to the girl. "Now, be warned, it is my job to arm you for the foulest creatures known to wizard kind… you may find yourself facing your worst fears in this room… I must ask you not to scream!"

With a flourish Lockhart pulled away the cover to reveal… Cornish pixies, Harry knew that since pixies were part of the Fae family and as such were considered 'dark' creatures but this was ridiculous, even a house elf was more dangerous than a pixie.

For reasons best known to himself Lockhart suddenly opened the door of the cage and the pixies swarmed out, they began terrorising the students who were helpless against them, the only one unbothered by them was Harry.

During his talks with Dobby over the summer Harry had learned that almost all magical beings within the fae family were constructed entirely of magic, their physical appearance were either illusions or conjured. That meant that they could only be stopped by magic, trying to swat them out of the air like Ron didn't faze the pixies at all. All Harry had needed to do was tense his magical aura, he still couldn't get his aura to become visible but he could get it dense enough so that the pixies struggled to penetrate it, like a poor man's shield charm.

When faced with such an obstacle the pixies chose to ignore him in favour of easier prey, in this case his classmates and teacher. He began focusing on a pixie that was getting too curious in him and sent out a whip of magic, it was the combination of his research into spell creation. It was very similar to how he formed mithril, except rather than focusing on forming magic that formed his intent, he shaped his magic into his intent directly.

It was much quicker than forming his mithril however with his mithril he formed it once and then he could activate as many times as he wanted later without needing to reshape it. His whip flew invisibly from his hand to the pixie, the moment it struck the pixie was flung across the classroom and into the wall. Instantly the other pixies stopped and turned to glare at Harry, like all fae pixies had a very strong swarm mentality, whenever one member is in danger the other member all try to help.

This meant that Harry now had an entire swarm of angry pixies bearing down on him, Harry quickly sent out two more whips that both struck their targets, however all he had achieved was to temporarily knock those two wasps away, already the first wasp had rejoined its brethren. He wasn't strong enough to cast stupefy, which was a sixth year spell and he didn't know enough about the jinx to try and replicate its effects, petrifying jinxes would normally work on a swarm such as this but the jinx paralyzed the body of its target and since pixies were made of magic the jinx wouldn't have any impact.

His mithril would easily deal with them but he was loathe to reveal his mithril to his classmates, as he thought about his mithril he remembered that all fae had some intolerance to metals such as iron, for the fae as small as a pixie prolonged contact with iron was deadly. Of course Harry wasn't strong enough to actually summon iron but he could transfigure something into iron, looking through the swarm of pixies he spotted a large copper candlestick, he ran over and quickly ran his wand over it, as his wand passed over the stick it shrunk and began changing to iron.

After what seemed forever Harry now had a considerably smaller iron candlestick, he spun around and wielded the candlestick like a sword, the pixies began backing off, using his new weapon and his magic whips he herded the pixies to there cage and eventually got all of the pixies into the cage, he slammed the door shut and let out a sigh of relief. Slowly he became aware of the fact that at some point all his classmates and Lockhart had left him to deal with the swarm alone.

* * *

On his way to his workshop after that dreadful lesson Harry became aware of someone following him, he carefully extended his magic behind him and formed an impression of the hall in his mind. He had learned how to visualise his surroundings in his occlumency lessons and it had been relatively simple to learn how to make an image using magic instead, it wasn't perfect and only showed highly magical objects but in Harry's mind, the 'cool' factor made up for the downsides.

He recognised the sky blue signature as Luna's, he could have increased the power on his notice-not but he had been lonely ever since Hermione died and a small part of him thought that Luna could fill that hole. He still didn't understand how Luna could see through his notice-nots when none of the other students could.

When he opened his door he made sure to brush his hand against the mithril door knob, his power had grown that he no longer needed to deform the mithril to change it, he told the mithril to accept the next magical signature that touched it. The workshop protections had changed considerably since he had first set them up, if someone unauthorised tried to open the door they would be hit by the equivalent of a repelling charm, the unfortunate student would suddenly remember something urgent and hurry off to the opposite side of the castle.

If they got passed the door they would find that they are stuck within the workshop until Harry released them, he had drawn inspiration from the vaults at Gringotts, if they somehow escaped the room with any of his mithril they would find the final defense, if any of his mithril objects got stolen and left the room they would go to the same plane of reality as his flask and saber.

The only way to retrieve them was with his gauntlet which never left his hand, Nicolas had told him that the Philosopher's Stone was deeply loyal to the magic within it, now that it had bonded with the mithril it would always be loyal to Harry. The only way for someone else to use it would be to remove the mithril, which was difficult by itself even without the Stone itself rejuvenating the mithril.

Harry waited in his workshop, waiting for Luna to enter, however after a few minutes it became clear she wasn't going to be entering.

* * *

"The Stone works by holding the magic of its user, aside from your mithril the Stone is the only magical object I know to hold the pure signature without any contamination, the elixir of life itself is just a healing potion but instead of a bezoar you use the charged Stone. The elixir has the power to completely heal its drinker, so long as the drinker is the one who charged the Stone, if the signature in the Stone doesn't belong to the drinker then it is a basic healing potion at best, deadly at worst."

After almost a month of teaching Nicolas had decided it was time for Harry to learn how to use the Stone, he had avoided the alchemy side of the Stone due to the considerable risk, when he had first met Harry he had used what was left of the Stone's loyalty to lock the Stone from performing accidental alchemy.

But even without alchemy the Stone was incredibly powerful, even just regular contact with the Stone would boost the immune system and grant temporary immunity to most poisons both muggle and magical. It gave the holder a boost in power and could be used as a magical focus like a wand or runes, it was this attribute that made learning the different magicks vitally important. If you used the Stone as a foci it would only accept Loquela and Verbarn magicks while the alchemy side would only accept divine or arcane magicks.

"Now it is important to note that the Stone can bring people back from the brink of death and can even prevent aging or illness, but that doesn't make you unkillable, even at my fall strength a simple killing curse would have been enough to kill me. Even the Stone has limits and it cannot prevent any quick death, it also cannot bring back the dead, it could return a dead body back to perfect health but the soul would still be missing… I have long suspected that the Stone would greatly aide in dark necromancy, most of the necromancy spells I have heard of focus entirely on repairing the body with only a small amount dedicated to animating the dead… I tell you this as a warning, if there is ever a significant risk that the Stone will be taken from you, _destroy it_."

* * *

_As foretold, a new chapter! Starting to get more into alchemy and fae lore, if anyone knows of any fanfictions with good alchemy or fae please tell, for example Barefoot by Zaxaramas had some alchemy lore in the later chapters. _

_Last chapter I asked about Harry befriending Luna and/or Ginny and so far the consensus is Luna but not Ginny, Luna will probably become more involved after Halloween which will be in the next chapter, Lockhart will also be more involved than in canon since I really enjoy his character and I was really upset he doesn't appear in the movies after Chamber of Secrets._


	34. The Chamber has opened

Halloween had arrived despite how much Harry wished it wouldn't. When he awoke that morning he quickly dressed and went down to his workshop, his gauntlet was telling him that nobody had entered his workshop since he had locked it but when he unlocked the door he found Dumbledore examining his shelves.

"You've been busy since I was last here" Dumbledore noted, indicating the various mithril toys and tools that he and Bathsheda had developed.

Harry shrugged and flopped onto his couch, Dumbledore joined him although he sat down with more elegance.

"Is there any point asking how you got in without triggering my mithril?" Harry asked dryly.

"I find very few people bother locking their windows"

"We're on the sixth floor…"

Dumbledore chuckled but didn't reveal any more, the two sat in silence for a few moments before Harry grew bored and began work on his latest 'toy', it was in the shape of a bird and Harry was curious to see if he could make it fly. Eventually he activated it and the bird began flapping its wings before taking off and circling the room.

"Imitating life, Harry?"

"Eventually, at the moment it's just a weightless and direction ideology, exactly the same as moving something with a levitation charm… I need to pre plan the route the bird will take which is kind of useless for now. Eventually I want to just tell it a location and it will find its own way there, like an owl."

"On the topic of your mithril, how is your project with the wards coming along?"

"Fairly well, Bathsheda thinks we should have the bugs worked out by the end of the year, currently we can have a ward fully powered for an infinite amount of time, but if you hit it with a ward shear the entire ward implodes… We think it's an issue with the runes so we're trying to directly copy the runes into the mithril which will solve most of the issues."

"Good good, I fear that with Voldemort appearing last year and your friend Dobby's warning this year there is danger ahead and when that danger appears I want Hogwarts to be as safe as possible… now was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"Lockhart's a terrible teacher, for his first lesson he set a swarm of pixies on us."

"Well that doesn't sound so bad, I remember doing the same when I needed to cover a Defense lesson."

"It wasn't the pixies that were the issue, it was the fact Lockhart was the first to run and I needed to stop the pixies by myself and then since that lesson he's only been reading from his books!"

"Have you tried talking to him about this? I find that most conflicts can be avoided by talking. Of course if this keeps up after you talk to him I will talk to him myself… So did you have any plans for today?" Dumbledore asked casually but Harry could tell without looking that he had assumed his 'serious' face.

"I was planning on rereading my parents school reports until dinner and after that the Grey Lady invited me down to Sir Nicolas' death day, but if you had something planned…"

"That's good, all I was going to suggest was that we could go visit the University of Transfiguration but if you have no complaints I suggest we visit tomorrow to celebrate an uneventful Halloween."

"Sure, that sounds great"

The Dumbledorian University of Transfiguration had been formed after the war against Grindelwald, the various ministries of magic in Europe wanted to reward Dumbledore for saving them but Dumbledore refused, the University was the compromise. Dumbledore got to see his 'reward' go to the good of the people and see more people learn about his favourite subject, while the ministries of Europe got to spend a lot of money and stick Dumbledore's name onto it.

Despite Dumbledore's name being in the name of the university he had no official say over the running of the school, the only requirement he had for them to use his name was that students couldn't be turned away for their blood or financial status.

"I assume you are aware of Ms. Lovegood's habit of following you around the castle?" Dumbledore asked after a moments silence

"Yeah, I'm kind of waiting for her to build up the courage to find this room first…" Harry said sheepishly

"It is good to see you are still letting others in… alas I need to get back to work, should you have need of me I will either be within my office or the hall."

"Oh professor, I do actually have something for you." Harry ran over to his shelf and pulled down two mithril objects, one looked like a large rock while the other resembled a small plate.

"If you keep hold of this plate then if I need you I can activate the mithril and this rock like one will be transported to your plate, this way if I need you I can write my location on the rock and send it to you… I haven't gotten it to work in reverse yet and when I tried to make two plates the rock got confused… but it would make me feel better to know I have a way to contact you quickly in an emergency."

Dumbledore took the plate solemnly "Of course, there is a charm for communication but it is considerably complex, but I take this with the trust that if I contact you with my charm that you will obey it? This way we can both ensure safety"

* * *

The death day party was an adequate distraction, Harry thought. It was interesting to see so many ghosts in one place and able to see the magic behind them. At first glance their signatures were just regular signatures but more translucent, however when he looked closer at them he saw that the shapes that he had begun to see in magical signatures were missing. He needed to take a closer look at Lockhart's pixies but he would bet that the pixies were also missing the shapes in their signature, which indicated that the colour was the magic itself while the shapes was the physical body.

He also wanted to ask Dumbledore to show him some self-transfiguration to see if that changed his signature, however he suspected that Dumbledore would refuse. Over the summer he and Dumbledore had come to the understanding that if Harry needed help with magic Dumbledore would help, but he wouldn't make it easy for Harry to do magic he deemed dangerous.

Seeing the ghosts 'taste' the food had also been educational, the food itself did not contain any magical properties, but when the ghost walked through they temporarily mimicked the shape of the food's signature, which led to some worrying conclusions about what happened when a ghost walked through a student.

Harry was raised from his musing by the Grey Lady drifting over, he had sought her out after Hermione's death to ask about the possibility of her coming back as a ghost, he had kept talking to her after it had become obvious his friend wouldn't return as she did not pity him like the other classmates or gush over him for being famous.

"How are you finding the party?" She asked wistfully

"It's unique, I must admit it is interesting to see how you all interact with everything."

Just then Peeves began chasing a younger ghost out of the room and the other ghosts seemed to take this as their cue to leave. Peeves was the most curious ghost, he had a translucent signature and yet he still had some shapes within, admittedly the shapes where the most fluid he had seen but it was strange. The few shapes he had let him physically interact with magical objects but due to their fluidity he could change shape easily and even phase through the walls.

Harry stepped up to Sir Nicolas and politely said "Thank you for inviting me Sir Nicolas."

The ghost seemed to cheer up at that and replied "Nonsense, it's always nice to meet new people, and who knows you may be joining us in a few years."

With that the ghost turned and strolled right through the wall behind him, leaving Harry to wonder whether that was a prediction of danger or simple something he said to everyone, a few years for a ghost could be centuries to a human after all.

* * *

He decided to head to the kitchens for food before going to his common room. As he walked he started hearing a sinister voice hissing, he began following the hissing before he forced himself to stop, the hissing surely wasn't an indication of anything good.

"Dobby?" He whispered, as expected the elf appeared before him silently, the only indication of magic was the slight ripples of Hogwarts magic.

"Master Potter Sir?"

"Can you hear that voice?"

"What voice Sir?"

The very voice they were talking about was getting quieter as if moving away, Harry quickly pulled Dobby close and took off his school cloak to reveal his Invisibility Cloak underneath, he closed them and hurried after the voice, Dobby followed but was obviously confused.

They rounded a corner and the voice suddenly became clearer "Rip… Tear… Kill!"

"There did you hear it?" Harry asked Dobby frantically, Dobby shook his head "Dobby not be hearing anything."

Finally they stopped on the second floor outside the out of order bathroom, there was water everywhere but what drew Harry's attention was the stiff body of Mrs. Norris hung up by her tail. He was forced to look away when he realised the voice was getting louder and closer "I smell Blood!... So Hungry!" it was as if the voice was right next to him, he quickly opened the cloak and looked around but even with his mage sight he saw nothing, only the white of Hogwarts walls and the yellow of Dobby.

Harry pulled out his messenger stone and reformed it to say 'Trouble, Second Floor, Haunted Bathroom.' and activated the metaphysical properties that would send it to Dumbledore. He knew it wouldn't take long for Dumbledore to reach him so took a moment to inspect Mrs. Norris, on top of her signature was a vivid green net of magic and malice, the net was tightly constricting the cat's shape within her signature.

Dobby had begun to tug on Harry's hand, his fear had made his voice even squeakier than normal "Mister Potter _must_ leave, there is danger here."

"Dobby its fine, Dumbledore's coming and I think the danger has already passed"

"But the writing sir!" Dobby pointed one shaky finger above the cat, there written in what looked like blood was a message '_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir... beware_'

Just then he heard a great roar of noise from either end of the corridor, it sounded like the entire school was approaching, he pulled Dobby into a corner and pulled the cloak over them, this robbed him of his ability to see magic as the Cloak's magic was so dense he couldn't see anything else through it.

The crowd appeared around the first corner with the headmaster in front, he stopped in front of Mrs. Norris and told the school "Everyone stay back, prefects return the students to their common rooms." His voice was calm but everyone heard him, Harry suspected magical involvement but under his Cloak he couldn't tell.

"Harry, are you here?" Dumbledore was now much quieter but in the wake of the silence his announcement it seemed like everyone heard him, Harry quickly applied a notice not and slipped out of the cloak, he walked up behind Dumbledore and tapped the man on the shoulder.

Dumbledore spun around and Harry felt his magic swelling before Dumbledore recognised him.

"What happened?" Dumbledore had an edge of panic that Harry hadn't heard before

"I was coming back from the death day party and… I saw Mrs. Norris on the wall, I called you and waited until you showed up."

The remaining students began muttering which made Dumbledore turn on them "Silence! Return to your common rooms at once!" he glared at the remaining students until they began leaving, herded by the members of staff that had turned up.

"My cat! Somebody murdered my cat?!" One of the staff Harry had forgotten about was Filch

"Argus please calm yourself, she is not dead" Dumbledore commanded

"Then why is she all… _stiff_?" It shocked Harry to hear a tremble in his voice, the man seemed so grumpy and angry the whole time it was easy to forget he still cared for some things, such as his cat.

"Ah, I thought so, I encountered something similar before you see -" Lockhart began

"Yes thank you Gilderoy, but perhaps this discussion is best done elsewhere? Harry if you could report to my office tomorrow after breakfast?"

* * *

"Why did you attack the cat?" The moment Harry entered his common room he was assaulted with questions, it seemed his fellow Ravenclaws had been staying up to interrogate him.

"What reason would I have to attack a cat?" Harry asked incredulously

"I don't know, you attacked Malfoy this time last year…"

"That was because he insulted Hermione, saying she was better dead! And why would I call for Dumbledore if I was responsible?"

Before anyone else could ask him stupid questions Harry forced himself through the crowd and to his dorm, his dormmates looked ready to interrogate him too so he entered his study room and formed a block of mithril that would keep the door shut until he removed it, laying down in bed he found it hard to fall asleep and when he did he was plagued by nightmares.

* * *

"_Soon you will call me master and you will serve me faithfully, you were always going to… it was your _destiny"

Harry awoke with a start, according to his watch it was still an hour before food would be served in the great hall but sitting in the hall was preferable to being questioned by the Ravenclaws.

As expected he was the first student in the hall, he sat down in his normal spot and was surprised when food quickly began appearing near him, he was even more surprised to find that it was his regular breakfast. After a whispered "thank you" for the elves he began tucking in.

Midway through his breakfast he became aware of a spot completely devoid of magic beside him. "Hello?" He asked cautiously, afraid that he had found what was responsible for Mrs Norris' petrification.

But when the invisibility was lifted it was only Dobby "You be leaving your cloak Sir, Dobby be's returning it!" Harry quickly took the Cloak and put it on under his school cloak, his sense of security rose at the silky feeling of his Cloak.

"Harry Potter must leave now!"

"What?" He had thought Dobby had stopped trying to get him to leave

"The Danger no longer unknown sir! Harry Potter must leave now that the chamber of secrets is opened once more!"

"I'm not leaving Dobby… wait did you say once more? As in it has been opened previously?"

"Dobby must be leaving!" He clicked his fingers and disappeared with a loud crack, before Harry could ponder over this latest revelation he became aware of Dumbledore sitting down across from him.

"I see your friend has managed to bypass the wards… that is concerning. Do you think he could have been behind the attack last night?"

"Not unless he is a very good actor. So when I left the death day party I began hearing this faint muttering, I called for Dobby and he said he couldn't hear it, we followed it under my Cloak and it grew louder but Dobby still said he couldn't hear it. Then we saw Mrs. Norris and I called for you, the voice sounded really close but I couldn't see it, even my mage sight didn't reveal it… I know they weren't invisible since while I can't actually see my Cloak when it's activated, I can see where it is since it blocks out the magic behind it… kind of like an inverted image if that makes any sense. Anyway Dobby was trying to get me to leave. I suppose he could have gotten Mrs. Norris before I called him…"

"I suspect that your friend is not old enough to have caused the attacks last time, as Dobby said, the chamber was opened once before, almost 50 years ago. I suggest you look into it in your own time, but for now I wanted to ask if you would mind looking at Mrs. Norris and see if you could undo it. I looked at her myself but I wasn't able to see anything."

"Did you not see the net of magic around her?" Harry asked curiously

"No, evidently I did not."

Dumbledore led Harry to the hospital wing, it looked weird to see an entire bed taken up by a cat, her front paws laying on top of the covers, it would have been funny if not for her stiff appearance and Filch sitting over her.

"Good morning Argus, I was wondering if you would mind Harry here taking a look at Mrs. Norris, he has the best mage sight I have ever encountered."

"I don't want Mrs. Norris to just be his newest lab project" Filch said hotly

"He is only here to help and hopefully stop anyone else suffering the same fate." Dumbledore said serenely

Filch gestured for Harry to 'get on with it'

Now that he didn't have the pressure of a bodiless voice or oncoming students he could focus more on Mrs. Norris, it seemed the net of magic had submerged itself within her signature, it was far less distinct but also seemed stronger. Harry knew just by looking at it that the entire net needed to be lifted at once otherwise it would crush Mrs. Norris' signature, presumably killing her.

He was able to look even deeper than the net, the shapes became much clearer. Perhaps it's because she wasn't human or a true magical being, maybe it was the fact she was was currently cursed, but either way Harry realised that if he memorised these shapes and made his mithril recreate them he would have a perfect replica of Mrs. Norris.

However what he knew for certain was that he wasn't strong enough to lift the cat's curse, when he told Dumbledore and Filch he expected the caretaker to get mad, however he only hung his head and nodded, he looked so dejected Harry found himself saying "I could come back every so often and see if there is anything else to try…"

Filch looked at him with what might have been a smile "That… would be nice, lad"

* * *

_The chamber has been opened and Harry is beginning to face challenges that he can't solve with his mithril, in case it wasn't as obvious as I intended, Harry can't use his mithril to fix the petrification because it is not physical magical strength that Harry needs but will power which his mithril can't provide._

_I will most likely not be able to post a chapter next week since I am on holiday and don't know if I will be able to write or upload while away._


	35. The Moody Auror

Harry was staring at his mithril ring intently, ever since he had come to the realisation that if he could change the shape of his mithril's signature he could make anything, not just a very accurate imitation of an object but an exact replica.

Despite his determination he wasn't making, the mithril changed some of its shapes when he reformed it but many of the shapes remained static. The shapes that didn't change most likely identified or created the material of the mithril, since even when he made the mithril act like wood or stone it was still, ultimately mithril.

Alchemy was the only known way to actually change something's form permanently, such as when he had turned the copper candlestick into iron, he hadn't just made the copper act and look like iron, he had changed the very structure of the copper into the structure of iron.

As Nicolas had explained "Transfiguration is making an object _believe_ it is another, Alchemy is making an object _become_ another. If you transfigure a stone into a bird it will think it is a bird, but once it's magic runs out it will become a stone again. If you transmute a stone into a diamond it will become a diamond and when it's magic runs out you will still have a diamond. Oh, transmutation is the technical term for when you use alchemy to change an object's properties."

It wasn't possible to make a living creature with alchemy. This is because even the most ordinary slug needs some form of energy to survive, with alchemy that energy has to originate from magic until it can produce its own. The problem was that it took at least several days for a living creature to begin producing a sustainable amount of energy, during which time it would need a constant supply of magic.

If the lifeform was given magic externally, such as runes or a spell then the creature would become dependent on that magic. This would invariably create a golem or spirit, capable of completing any task given to it, they also never needed to eat or sleep, some considered them the perfect servants. But these lifeforms had no free thought or independence and if they ever ran out of magic they would begin to unravel and collapse.

Despite knowing it would take him years to learn how to transmute his mithril into something else he kept at it, the only alternative was to leave his workshop and face the whisperings and mutterings of the students. The fact he had been the one to find Mrs. Norris and that he had never been the most sociable student had been enough for most of the school to condemn him as the heir of Slytherin.

He had needed to improve the quality of the notice-nots that protected the door and they had added one of their experimental ward generators, he and Bathsheda had still not been able to fix the issue of the runes burning out when the ward absorbed too much power.

Their idea of using mithril runes had gone nowhere, if they shaped the mithril into a rune then it would work individually, but even the simplest ward needed at least three runes, Power or Charge, Protect or Shield and Distance or Area. The mithril runes refused to work together so the only useful rune they could use was Shield which would make a green shield cover the mithril rune.

They had then tried to replicate the runes as ideologies but he couldn't get the mithril to make a proper magical shield, if he told the rune to protect a specific area then the mithril would expand to cover that area, great when you wanted to stop something but for a school an impenetrable wall of mithril wasn't ideal.

Bathsheda was trying to find out a way to combine all three runes needed for a basic ward into one single rune that could be copied by the mithril, there was also a few minor issues that needed dealing with, such as the unfortunate habit of the mithril occasionally sapping some of the power from the ward itself.

Despite the flaws in the ward Harry still felt safe as he doubted any student other than himself was capable of sending enough magic into the ward long enough for the runes to collapse, even Dumbledore had admitted that it would take a while for him to completely burn out the ward.

The students had gotten so bad he couldn't go anywhere in the school without students either fleeing from him or mocking him, some of the students had even come up to him and asked him to attack someone else. Just like the year before, Harry decided he would rather hide than put up with the students. If Dumbledore disapproved of him skipping lessons then he didn't let Harry know.

* * *

"Considering that we have an unknown foe, one which neither of us can detect, I called in a favour and was able to and procure these two invisibility cloaks, I thought it might be beneficial for you to investigate them and see what you can learn from them."

The first of the cloaks was clearly of high quality. The fabric was smooth and silky along with a silver sheen, it was fairly similar to his own Cloak of invisibility except it was bulkier and heavier.

The second cloak was of a much lower quality, it felt like it had been made of scratchy wool and the edges seemed to be constantly changing between visible and invisible.

When he looked at the material of the first cloak it seemed to be made from the creatures that pulled the carriages, it seemed the material retained the creatures natural invisibility. Now that he had more lime to Look he saw what looked like a conditional clause which made the creature almost entirely undetectable to anyone that hadn't activated the clause.

Underneath the magic of the material was a mix of notice-nots and disillusionment, each enchantment was tied to its own individual thread which then held the cloak together, in order to break the invisibility first the material, the hide of the create, needed to be broken before you could even begin to attack the enchantments.

The second cloak was far more basic, it was made of what must have been the hide of a demiguise, like the first cloak it had disillusion enchantments alongside the natural invisibility, but they were tied on top of the hide rather than the thread. This seemed to be because the demiguise invisibility didn't have a conditional clause which made it easier to unravel.

When both cloaks were activated the first faded from his Sight just like his own, while the second began to glow brighter, this could have been the notice-not but Harry suspected it was some innate property of the material mixed with enchantments. With the first cloak the hide was responsible for most of the invisibility so more magic was able to put into hiding the magic.

If he compared either cloak to his own cloak both were painfully primitive, if either cloak where to get hit by a strong enough spell then the cloak would either break apart or lose its invisibility, his own cloak would only ever lose its invisibility when he told it to deactivate no matter how many times it got hit.

"Where did you get the cloaks from? I can tell neither belong to you and I don't recognise any of the signatures on it"

"You can see the signatures from those that have used it?" Dumbledore asked amazed

"Sort of, I can see an imprint of where they have touched it, the rust like orange stands out above the rest so I assume that one belongs to the owner."

"You and your powers have come a very long way in such a short time Harry… Yes, both cloaks belong to a good friend of mine, an auror called Alastor Moody. One of the cloaks is the best money could buy… well it was some 50 years ago when it was standard issue for aurors. The second cloak, the one made from the hide of a thestral was made by myself and Nicolas as a 60th birthday present for Alastor. As you should be able to tell, invisibility cloaks aren't very common and shop bought are often mass produced and lack in quality, so what can you tell from these two?"

"I assume the one you and Nicolas made is one of the best cloaks available? Possible only beaten by The Cloak itself, but even then I can see where it _isn't_, against the walls of Hogwarts even my own Cloak stands out. Which means that whatever attacked Mrs Norris can't have been using an invisibility cloak… or at least they must have been using something alongside a cloak. I'm fairly sure I would have recognized the effect of a notice-not, but if it was powerful enough I might have missed it…"

"I can tell you that there were no notice-nots cast anywhere in Hogwarts during the feast and nobody entered or exited the wards that day. Whoever attacked Mrs Norris must have either been inside already and left after I had checked the wards or… the attacker was… and perhaps still _is_ here, within the castle."

The two took a moment to digest this thought, it was frightening to think that someone capable of completely petrifying someone without leaving any evidence or hint of their identity.

"How goes your attempt at undoing whatever is keeping Mrs Norris petrified?"

"Slowly, I would need to lift the entire spell at once otherwise it would kill her, but I currently lack the power to do it, I can't even use my mithril since it's not directly magical power. I've just been looking at it to try and find any weaknesses."

"And have you found any?" Dumbledore asked eagerly

"Only one so far, it's the conditional that allows it to be so powerful. It seems that if the intended victim has a specific shape in their signature then they should be unaffected."

"But you don't know what that shape is?"

"Well… I know what it should look like but I don't know what it exactly _is_."

Dumbledore's fireplace suddenly flared up with a bright green blaze before they could say anything else.

"Albus? Damnit Albus are you there?" A gruff voice came from the fire, Dumbledore swiftly got up and crouched by the fireplace

"Yes. Alastor is that you?"

"Yes, I need you to come through, somethings come up… do you still have that magical expert with you?"

"He is, what's happened?"

"Easier to show you, come through I'll leave the connection open."

Dumbledore turned to see Harry standing close by

"I assume you heard? I cannot in good conscience ask you to come… but I fear you will be needed so I won't tell you to stay away…"

"Of course I'm coming, what's the worst that could happen? Even Voldemort fled from both of us last year."

"Voldemort was greatly weakened last year… but I suppose you are correct, even now few could hope to match you in terms of power and anyone that could would need to put up with me too. But if you are to join me then I insist that you follow any order myself or Alastor may give you... Very well, shall we be off then?"

Dumbledore stepped into the flame and seemed to be sucked up into them, Harry took a deep breath before following him into the fire.

* * *

The floo wasn't as bad as apparition but still something he vowed to avoid where possible. When eventually stopped spinning and exited the floo network he stumbled and crashed onto the floor, covered in ash and bruised all over.

"This is your expert? A boy?" Harry looked up and saw a single leg next to a wooden peg leg, looking even further up revealed the most scared man he had ever seen.

"Honestly Alastor, you should know by now that magic cares not for age."

The man, Alastor gave a bark that could have been a laugh, as Harry stood he casually attempted to Look at the man with his mage sight, instantly he was stopped by a barrier that seemed to originate from the man's thick coat.

Alastor's eyebrows rose in surprise, leading Harry to notice he only had one eye, one was small and dark but where its twin should have been a vivid, electric blue magical eye sat. It moved around frantically, taking in everything in the room completely independently of his normal eye.

"Alastor may I introduce you to Mr. Harry Potter, Harry this is Auror Alastor Moody".

"It's nice to meet you Mr. Moody"

"None of that, call me Alastor or Moody, none of this Mr nonsense"

Harry took a moment to look at the room itself, which seemed to be his office, filing cabinets covered an entire wall, the only other piece of furniture was a solid oak desk which was layered in protective wards and enchantments.

The magical blue eye focused on Harry and he felt his magic… tingle, it felt similar to when Snape used legilimency on him except rather than his mind being read it was his magic. He quickly turned his magic inside out and pulled it close so that his signature was harder to see, this also hid the various magical objects that he kept on him at all times.

"He's skilled, I'll give you that… not many can detect my eye and fewer still can actually try to hide from it. He's not quite there yet but he's well on his way to hiding fully, I guess he might be able to see what we can't."

Dumbledore hummed in agreement "Quite… So what exactly is the situation? You weren't exactly very forthcoming with the details."

"In short, a robbery. Someone broke into one of Lucius Malfoy's manors and into his vault, he says nothing has been taken but you can bet he went through it before alerting the aurors. But it's not the break in itself that's important, what's important is that there is no evidence there was a break in… Malfoy only realised something was up because he happened to take a look at his vault and saw it was open. The wards weren't broken, none of the doors have been tampered with and none of the family opened the vault."

"And you think there might be something me and Harry might see that you haven't?"

"Always a possibility, but I was also thinking we could use the opportunity to try and see what Malfoy might have missed. You know I need clear evidence to bring him to justice and my eye has never been considered valid evidence, but if _you_ were to find something, well the Wizengamot can't turn you away can they?"

"I see… you would prefer punishing Lucius Malfoy further over catching this thief that can break into his manor and vault without being detected?" There was a hint of disappointment in Dumbledore's voice but Alastor either didn't notice or didn't care.

Harry couldn't really follow what was happening but from what he could understand it seemed Alastor was trying to use Dumbledore to frame Mr Malfoy. Considering how Mr. Malfoy had acted the year before Harry couldn't decide if he deserved it.

Dumbledore sighed deeply but nodded and said "Very well then, how are we getting to Malfoy Manor?"

"There is a portkey, I sent Nyphadora to go get it, she's just about to open the door."

Just as he predicted the door opened and a woman with bright purple hair stumbled, in having tripped on the door frame, when Harry glanced at the man's magical eye which seemed to be looking through his skull at the door. Harry realised the man could not only see through the back of his head but also through the door, something he hadn't yet achieved with his own Mage Sight.

"I got that portkey Mad-Eye… Oh wotcher, I'm Tonks" Harry was stunned to see her hair change through many colours. When he Looked at her he was amazed to see that her signature's structure was the most fluid he had ever seen. Her shapes weren't tethered together like the Elder Wand, instead each shape glowed as if they had been drawn by pure magic.

As her hair changed what must have been the relevant shapes glowed brighter and changed, Harry also began recognising some of the shapes, one of the shapes was currently a perfect representation of the arcanic rune for the colour red, when he looked at her hair he saw she now had bright red hair.

Arcanic runes were the more primal version of the Norse runes taught by Bathsheda, much like all fields in the arcane family the magic was closer to raw magic, it seemed that the shapes which made up the structure of an object's signature were actually arcanic runes. Nicolas had only taught Harry the most basic of arcanic runes, most of which needed other, more powerful runes to activate to guarantee that he wouldn't mess around with them and accidently blew up all of Hogwarts.

Harry realised the woman was looking very awkward and realised he must have zoned out staring at her for a fair bit.

"I can see you've been teaching him well." Alastor said before he gave off another bark of mirth

"Indeed… Shall we be off then?"

The portkey turned out to be a muggle frisbee, Harry barely had a moment to Look at the portkey before they were whisked away, yet another magical form of travel that's rubbish Harry thought.

* * *

_For some reason I had accidently moved part of the beginning into the next chapter, luckily the chapter still worked without it which made it hard to notice, but now it has more world building, yay._

_Originally I was going to include Harry investigating Malfoy manor but I decided to move it to next week to ensure there was an actual chapter this week._

_The way I see the cloak is like a green screen, on TV you can't see the green screen itself but you can see where it is when someone walks behind one even though it is still "invisible"_


	36. Break in at Malfoy Manor

It was mildly interesting to see the portkey in action, it lifted its passengers out of earth's gravity and then traveled to the location before dropping back into gravity, the spinning was needed to keep the passengers alive in what would otherwise have been zero gravity. The traveling itself was identical to apparition, but due to the lower gravity the squeezing sensation either went unnoticed or the feeling only happened when traveling within earth's gravity.

Outside the gates of Malfoy manor two aurors stood guard, Moody strode up to one and said "Auror Alastor Moody and Trainee Auror Nymphadora Tonks entering Malfoy manor, consultants Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter accompanying. It should be noted that Mr. Potter is underage but has been granted permission to use magic for this case by his guardian Albus Dumbledore, under the watch of Auror Alastor Moody."

The auror nodded and let the four of them pass through the gate, the moment he stepped over the boundary he felt the wards press down on him. They weren't anywhere as strong as Hogwarts wards but they felt more oppressive.

Lucius Malfoy met them at the front door "What took you so long? I called for the aurors almost an hour ago, I should have you reprimanded _auror_ Moody."

Moody scoffed "Empty threat Malfoy, you don't have the power anymore."

"And what is Mr. Potter doing here?"

"He's with me, he's one of the best magical trackers I know." Moody said, leaving no room for Lucius to argue the point.

Malfoy sneered at them but let them in anyway, Harry instinctively spread out his magic and felt something amiss

"Mr. Malfoy… How many people are in the house right now?"

"Just us five. Narcissa is currently visiting friends and Draco is still at school"

"You don't have a house elf do you?"

"Not since the summer, I haven't had the time to get another one."

"Then why can I feel six people in the house?" Harry asked slowly

Moody's eye began spinning frantically, obviously looking around the house "Where is the sixth person?"

"I can't really tell, it's just _up_"

"I checked the wards, there is no one here." Malfoy insisted

"No one or no human?" Harry asked cautiously

"What's that meant to mean, they're the same thing you stupid child."

"And what about vampires, ghouls, the fae or even just a hag would fall under the classification of '_not human_' so answer Potter's question, do your wards detect _people_ or _humans_?"

"Humans" Malfoy spat out through clenched teeth

"Potter, is it possible the person you're detecting isn't human?"

Harry reached out for the signature he could feel, it was clearly hidden so he couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from, he could tell it had a single aura so it wasn't a house elf, it also wasn't as dense as the Cornish pixies so it probably wasn't a fae. Having never had the chance to see a vampire or ghoul he didn't know what they were meant to look like but he from what he could see of the beings signature it didn't look like a human or a hag.

"It's possible, it's so faint it's hard to tell."

Moody stared at Malfoy and asked "Do you have an attic Malfoy?"

"I… do, but it's been sealed for as long as I can remember, I highly doubt anyone could break into it." Malfoy said slowly, as if he were trying to convince himself

"Well then perhaps you should have kept your vault in your attic if you're so sure of its protections."

"My great Grandfather sealed the attic back when he was Lord Malfoy, I suspect with blood magic. As such the only way to open the attic is with either the key or an equal amount of power, if it were for the fact the key has been lost for decades I would have stored the vault with the attic."

"Is the entire attic warded or just the door?" Harry asked hesitantly

"Whatever do you mean boy?"

"Well, if it's just the door that's been sealed you could just blow a hole in the ceiling and climb up."

"The entire floor is sealed foolish child."

"Let's cut the chit-chat and go have a look at that attic." Moody said gruffly as he marched off through the manor, Harry suspected he was using his magical eye to see through the walls for the correct way through the house, that or had been here so many times he had memorised the route.

Eventually they reached a corridor that seemed to lead no where, it was only when Harry looked up and saw the dense magic covering the ceiling did he realise this was the way into the attic, presumably the stairs were hidden in the ceiling and would descend when triggered.

"Do you think you can you open it up, Potter?" Moody asked curiously

Harry Looked more closer, if he strained his mage sight he could just about see inside the magic, the problem was it was so dense it had become almost opaque. He had quickly zoned out Mr. Malfoy who had begun to rant about how it was impossible to open the attic.

The protections were a classic conditional ward which were already powerful, but it seemed blood ward gave the ward even more power. The end result was an almost impenetrable ward of pure magic, it would have taken Harry days to take it apart piece by piece without help.

Fortunately this time he didn't need to actually take it apart, instead he focused on the epicenter of the ward. As he hoped he quickly found the clause for the conditional ward, just as Malfoy had said it was looking for a particular magical key.

Once he knew what it was looking for he formed a small piece of mithril in his hand and gave it the properties the ward was looking for. The only trouble was it also needed to be the magical signature of the family, he could've gotten Mr. Malfoy to imbue his signature into the mithril but that would require him explaining his mithril, instead he instructed his mithril to return the signature of whatever was checking it.

For a laugh he decided to make his mithril form into the shape of a key and held it up to the ceiling, he watched as a tendril of magic touched the key before returning back into the ceiling, it seemed to accept it as valid as the steps started descending from the ceiling one by one, eventually forming a staircase which led into the now opened attic.

"What? That attic has been sealed for decades, I've had many experienced curse breakers try and _fail_ to get in and you do it in moments?" Lucius spluttered

"As I said Lucius, the boy is one of the strongest magical trackers I know, now let us inspect that attic. Tonks, you and Potter stay guard down here incase the intruder tries to make a run for it while we're up there, Lucius, Albus you're with me."

* * *

"So how do you change yourself like that?" Harry asked after a few minutes had passed of them awkwardly standing at the bottom of the stairs

"What? Oh I'm a metamorphmagus, it means I can change my appearance at will." Tonks said cheerfully

"Useful skill to have." Harry said absently, thinking about what he could do if he had the power to change himself at will

"Yeah, it's saved my neck a few times, but a metamorphmagus is born, it can't be learnt."

Harry Looked at her for a moment, watching as her signature shifted and changed. He wondered if he could make his own signature change like that or if his mithril could replicate the effect for him.

"Perhaps... I guess we'll see won't we?" She chuckled for a moment before realising Harry wasn't joking

"People have tried to copy my powers in the past you know, none have succeeded before." she said cautiously

"Nobody got into Malfoy's attic before either."

"But that's completely unrelated!"

"Not really, when you think about it at the end of the day it's all the same magic."

As he talked he had formed a mithril bracelet that would make his hand bright orange, he activated it as he raised his hand so Tonks could see it. Her eyes widened comically as his hand quickly turned bright orange.

"No way… No way did you just do that, it must be a trick or something… make it blue."

It was easy to quickly reform the mithril with the idea blue instead of orange, the moment he finished reforming it his hand briefly went back to its original skin tone before changing to a bright blue.

Before Tonks could react a gigantic shape flew down the stairs and knocked them both to the ground and began charging down the hall. Harry absently noted it didn't give off a shadow as he thrust out his hand and a spear of mithril shot down the hall.

It looked like the spear was going to get the intruder in the leg but at the last moment they seemed to blur and move to the side, allowing the spear to shoot past. Harry quickly reached out with his magic for the mithril spear and managed to make it reform into a giant net which spread to cover the hall.

The intruder managed to come to a stop just before they hit the net, they turned and Harry realised it was a woman, she grinned at him and then seemed to turn into smoke, it easily slipped through the mithril before reforming back into the woman. By then Tonks' had retrieved her wand and had shot a red spell down the corridor which just managed to slip through the holes of the mithril while on a direct path for the intruder.

Rather than dodge out of the way the person thrust her hand upwards which made the floorboard rise up and intercept the spell, whatever the spell was it managed to fill the hallway with smoke, by the time the smoke had cleared the intruder had vanished.

* * *

"A Vampire managed to break into Malfoy Manor, Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter called in to help deal with the problem. Are we at risk of a new breed of vampire?" Bathsheda looked at Harry over the Daily Prophet.

The Prophet had somehow found out about the incident at Malfoy Manor despite the efforts of both Moody and Malfoy, Harry figured Malfoy wasn't pleased to have his name in the paper again having just recovered from his bad press from the year before.

"Honestly it wasn't as bad as they're saying it was, I just unlocked the door and the vampire was gone before we really knew it, Moody isn't even entirely sure it was a vampire."

"You still tried to stop them even though you could have let them go past, not many people would do that." Bathsheda said encouragingly

"Anyway, ignoring what the intruder was, I've had another idea. In order to get into Malfoy's attic I needed to replace the key needed to activate the conditional. Rather than get the magic from Malfoy I just made it replicate whatever signature the conditional was looking for. But I think I could incorporate something similar for the wards to fix the rune problem, if we set up the runes to make a small ward inside the mithril shield, then the mithril could pick up the ward and then replicate it to make the much bigger ward. I would need to incorporate a scale modifier but this way any magic going into the actual ward will never touch the runes themselves and as long as the internal ward holds the external ward will never fail." Harry said excitedly

"And if the external ward is only copying the internal ward it would eliminate most curse breaking techniques as there would be a buffer between the ward and runes… If we made the mithril hold the ward while the internal ward stones were being modified, then the headmaster could safely modify the wards without needing to drop the wards… Now we just need to get rid of the issue of the mithril draining the wards."

"Well I was thinking about that too, if we plugged the mithril into the leylines it could draw any necessary power from the leylines while the majority of the power comes from the mithril, this way Hogwarts can still have the powerful wards without needing to completely redesign any of them in mithril. We could even have blocks of specific ward runes that just slot into the main generator to change the wards like you were thinking of."

"Brilliant, let's test it here just to make sure and then we can invite Professor Dumbledore to check it out!" Bathsheda said happily.

* * *

"And you have removed the 'bugs' from the previous version?" Dumbledore asked as he tested the new Ward generator.

"Yes sir, Harry's idea got rid of almost every issue we had, we only have a slight issue of the mithril drawing some energy from the ward which can cause a fluctuation in power, but if we plugged them into the leylines like the current wards then that won't be a problem here. We just need to fix it later on if we want to use them elsewhere."

"Excellent, how long do you reckon it would take for you to replace the current wards with this new 'ward generator'?" Dumbledore asked joyfully

Bathsheda bit her lip as she thought it over "Without knowing the ward it's impossible to say, I would need to redraw all of the runes into the mithril by hand and then we would need to ensure everything is working correctly before we could implement it fully."

"Understandable, I will ask Nicolas to see if he will help you as he is something of a rune master himself and his knowledge of Arcanic runes is unparalleled. Very well then I will let you into the ward chamber every Saturday after Lunch, you will have until dinner to work."

* * *

With Christmas fast approaching Harry wanted to make something unique for his tutors presents, for Bathsheda he had designed a cube that would show any rune she asked for, he had hoped to have it show and make runic clusters as well but it proved too complex for his current time frame.

For Dumbledore he had designed a quill that could write in any colour and never run out of ink, but the main feature of the quill was that it could sign magical documents, there were already quills that could fill out documents but as the quill didn't contain the user's unique signature they couldn't be used to sign magically binding documents, that was until his quill which would hold the signature of Dumbledore.

He had decided to make a present for Flitwick this year as he now knew he didn't need to fear the goblins and his head of house had been very supportive of him when most of his fellow students had turned on him. His present was at first glance just an ordinary cube but it could hold any charm used on it, if Flitwick cast a levitation charm on the cube it would keep levitating until a new charm was used.

Currently he was working on Snape's present, Snape had once lamented how much time he spent brewing basic potions for the hospital wing. Self brewing cauldrons were available already, but as the brewer's magic was used in the brewing of a potion, self brewing cauldrons quickly ran out of magic and the time spent recharging the cauldron often equaled the time it took to actually brew the potion in the first place.

As his mithril cauldron would be able to recharge itself this was not an issue, the cauldron would also be able to make itself any temperature needed and would even preserve the potion when it finished brewing.

Snape would need to brew a potion by hand first while the cauldron 'recorded' his actions and then it could brew the potion by itself, it would even prepare the ingredients itself as long as they were left nearby.

The final present he needed was one for Nicolas, the trouble was Nicolas could probably make anything Harry was currently capable of with his knowledge of runes and alchemy. It didn't help that he had never complained about anything in front of Harry, eventually Harry had given up and asked Dumbledore for help.

"Sometimes the best present is the one that comes from the heart… I believe your mother once gifted her potions professor a water lily that turned into a fish, it didn't serve any purpose over than being something to look at. Does this help?"

Taking inspiration from his mother, Harry had decided to make a mithril bird that would gradually change into different shapes. He had imbued an alchemical property into the mithril which allowed the transmutation to keep hold, the bird would respond to preset commands such as "Follow" or "Stay".

Regrettably he didn't yet know how to get the bird to deliver mail so it was only decorative, but he hoped Nicolas would like it none-the-less.

Alongside the presents he was planning on sending letters to Filch and Nyphadora Tonks, he feared Christmas would be a bad time with Filch as he knew the man would be missing Mrs Norris. As for Nyphadora he wanted another chance to look at her Signature again and hoped she would be up for it.


	37. A Christmas Mircale

It seemed almost everyone had gone home for the Christmas Holidays. In Ravenclaw the only students that Harry knew were Justin and Luna, Draco Malfoy and Crabbe had been the only Slytherins to stay and Gryffindor seemed to be made up entirely of Weasleys.

When Harry entered the great hall on Christmas morning he was surprised to see just a single table being used instead of the much wider double table they had used the year before.

"Ahh, Merry Christmas Harry! As there are so few of us I thought we could settle for just one table." Dumbledore said cheerfully, true to form he had dressed in festival robes, this time they were bright red with animated snowflakes.

Harry was relieved to note that almost all of the students near him were ones that didn't believe he was the heir of Slytherin, it was nice to be able to relax around the students without the whispers that seemed to be following him everywhere he went.

"How did you like your present?" Dumbledore asked once most of the students had left and wouldn't over hear them. He had given Harry a book called '_The condition of Conditional magick_ by Armando Dippet' there had also been a message from Dippet "Dear Albus, I hope you enjoy being Headmaster as much as I did, being Headmaster of Hogwarts is the best job in the world. This book is the collection of my findings of conditional magic, from the common conditional ward to the elusive fae deals. Best of luck, Armando."

Along with the book Dumbledore had sent him a large box of Chocolates and his mother's transfiguration NEWT thesis, the thesis was about _how_ magic transfigures objects and living beings, having skimmed through it he saw she had reference both muggle physics and alchemy.

"They look really interesting, I can't wait to get to read them" Harry replied excitedly

Dumbledore smiled at his words "Wonderful, now I should say I have included my own notes within Armando's book but they are hidden behind conditional spells. You will need to read the book first before you can unlock the first note, you should then be able to use that first note to unlock the second and so forth. Think of it as a challenge and a test, in order to gain the next note you must be able to prove you can handle the previous material."

Harry nodded to show he understood, Dumbledore smiled widely and Harry thought he could see pride in Dumbledore's eyes.

* * *

"Good afternoon Mr. Filch, I brought you some Christmas dinner if you want it" Harry said softly. He knew the other students had decided to have a snowball fight outside but he had known Filch would be spending his Christmas next to Mrs Norris in his room.

"Aye, thank you. Merry Christmas lad." Filch said sadly

"I wanted to get you something for Christmas sir, but… well I didn't know what to get you… But well I wanted to ask, are you a squib sir?"

Filch sighed deeply and turned in his chair to face Harry properly.

"Aye lad I am."

"Would you mind if I used my power to Look at you? I have an idea but I need to see what the difference is between a wizard, squib and muggle. I know that a squib is different to a muggle as you can clearly see the ghosts and Peeves, which wouldn't be possible for a muggle."

"Sure, I guess. It'll give me something to focus on at least."

Harry Looked at Filch properly, as he expected Filch's signature seemed to be at the same level as an average wizard. This confirmed his theory that squibs did still have magic, they just couldn't use it.

"What happens when you try and do magic sir?"

"Well, I can feel the magic build but it's like it dies out before it can be released."

"Could you try and cast a spell?" Harry said as he handed over his wand, he Looked at Filch as the magic built.

When the magic tried to get lose it rushed towards the wand but seemed to die out before it could reach the it, Harry leaned in to where the magic had begun dying but couldn't see anything significant.

Harry spent several minutes looking up and down the man's arm and comparing it to his own, he had started Looking at the signatures when he realised he recognised two of them. In his own arm he had two sets of runes repeated over and over again, the symbol for 'magic' and then the symbol for 'life'.

These two runes ran along the entire length of his arm and when he used his magic they glowed subtly, the effect was similar to how Tonks' runes had glowed when she used her power.

When he looked at Filch's arm he saw he had those runes except the life rune was missing a single line, that line changed it into the symbol for 'death', meaning rather than support his magic his body actively fought it.

"Do potions work on you sir?"

"Nay they don't, whenever I've had a potion it just fails instantly, Professor Snape had a theory that was something about my magic pulling the magic out of the potion to make up for my own lack of power. Once when I took a particularly strong potion I could almost get a spell to work."

The fact the potions didn't work confirmed his own theory that the magic was being killed all over the body, this was good news as it meant the fault lay in the runes which would be easier to fix compared to something wrong with the core. Of course Harry wasn't capable of changing the runes within a person's signature so fully healing a squib was just a distant dream.

Instead Harry formed a block of mithril that he programmed to be absorbed into the man's body and build a network of magical pathways that would bypass the faulty runes and allow magical transfer.

"If you take this cube it should be absorbed into you and let you do magic… but I can't guarantee that it will work."

Filch looked at the cube carefully before looking straight into Harry's eyes

"Do you believe it is safe?"

Harry thought carefully before nodding

"Then that is a good enough guarantee for me lad."

He reached over and picked up the cube, it seemed to melt into him and Harry saw Filch's veins become a bright silver, Harry began panicking and was going to call for Dumbledore when Filch's veins regained their natural colour.

"Mr. Filch?" Harry asked tentatively "How do you feel?"

"How do I feel? I feel grand, lad! Better than I've felt in years." Filch gave Harry's wand a swish and the flowerpot next to Mrs Norris shattered, Filch began chuckling deeply. Filch flicked the wand at a nearby chest of drawers, each draw flew open throwing clothes all over the room.

Harry carefully reached over and plucked his wand out of the man's hands before anymore damage could be done

"I guess that means it works. Merry Christmas Mr. Filch."

"Thank you lad, thank you!"

Together they left Filch's room and went to the great hall in order to find Dumbledore and report his newest discovery. Their good mood vanished when they noticed how quiet the castle had gotten, slowly they turned a corner and saw a small group of students huddled around a body.

"There he is! He did it!" Harry stared at the Hufflepuff boy who was pointing at him, he vaguely remembered his name was Ernie Macmillan, he was good friends with Justin Finch-Fletchley.

The crowd parted and Harry saw the body was dressed in Ravenclaw robes, Harry rushed forward and yelled at the students to get out of the way. He felt his heart stop when he saw Justin lying there, the boy had always looked out for Harry and had been a firm supporter of him in the Ravenclaw common room.

He knelt next to Justin and Looked at his magic, as he expected he saw the same net of vivid green net magic that was wrapped around Mrs Norris.

"When did this happen?" Harry asked the crowd

"We just found him, he went inside to go to the toilet maybe an hour ago?" Harry turned and saw it was Ron who had spoken, beside him his sister Ginny stood fearfully, she was clutching a book tightly as if it would bring her some safety

"So anywhere between a minute and an hour." Harry muttered distractedly, he drew his wand and began passing it over Justin, using his wand as an extension of his mage sight.

At the sight of his wand the crowd stepped back fearfully, some of the braver students had even drawn their own wands and pointed them at Harry

"Oh grow up" Ron told the crowd hotly, stepping between them and Harry protectively.

Harry had to ignore what was happening behind him as he began a fierce battle with the green magic, it hadn't had time to settle into Justin's magic like it had with Mrs Norris so he was able to grab hold of it without endangering Justin. Despite being able to better fight the magic he still had the same problem of having a small 'range' of magic, the green magic would resist his attempts to remove it while at the same time latch on tighter elsewhere.

It felt like he was playing a game of Whack-a-mole as the moment he shifted his attention another piece of the green magic settled in elsewhere. He couldn't even form his mithril to do it for him as the time it would take for him to form the mithril would be enough for the green magic to take hold.

He could feel his magic wearing out as he worked, he had already gone through four of his mithril bands and only had one left, he was tiring quickly and he couldn't think of anything that could help him.

"Harry, listen to me, you need to stop."

"No, I can save him, I just need a bit more time." Harry said stubbornly, uncaring about who was talking to him.

"Harry! You need to let this go, you cannot win this battle." Harry turned and saw it was Dumbledore talking, with great reluctance Harry withdrew his magic from the battle.

He watched the foreign green magic settle under Justin's pale blue magic as his exhaustion set in, his last thought before he lost consciousness was bitter relief at finally understanding how the curse worked.

* * *

Harry awoke in the hospital wing, the first thing he noticed was that the mithril bands he kept on his legs at all time where missing. Only he was capable of seeing them which meant he must have burned through all five of them, it took an entire day's energy to make just one and he had been saving up to make a sixth.

The second thing Harry noticed was that his magic felt sluggish and unresponsive, he tried reaching out with his magic but found he was unable to move his magic any further than about a foot away from him, previously he had been able to reach at least five metres.

Finally Harry noticed Dumbledore sitting on the chair beside his bed, the headmaster was marking paper work but Harry felt a warmth run through him at the knowledge that Dumbledore had been keeping watch over him.

"Ah, good morning Harry." Dumbledore said warmly, Harry noted he looked relieved.

"Good morning? How long was I out for?" Harry asked groggily

"A week, we've been quite concerned about you."

"A week? But how I wasn't that tired surely." Harry said worriedly

"By the time I had reached you, you had almost completely burned through you magical reserve, it was only your gauntlet that was keeping you alive. Poppy feared you would be incapable of casting magic ever again." Dumbledore said gravely

"But I can still do magic right? Please tell me I can" Harry begged, for him magic was everything, he couldn't imagine life without being able to use his magic.

"Your body seems to have recovered better than Poppy expected, in no part due to the Stone and Nicolas' own skill in alchemical healing. Nicolas suspected your magic has done a 'soft reset' in order to keep you alive. When you were brought in your magical core was very weak, even weaker than an average child."

"But now?" Harry asked fearfully

"Now your magical core is just below the average for a second year. But your magical pathways are damaged, perhaps irreparably. Also… you channeled a lot of magic through your wand, I suggest you have your wand looked at before you try and use it again."

Harry nodded mutely, he cared for his wand greatly but he could replace his wand, he couldn't replace his magic.

"Finally I must ask you to refrain from forming any mithril until we are sure you magic has recovered. Very well then, I must be off then, should you need me I shall be within my office."

* * *

"I assume you are better, Potter?" Snape asked softly, it was the most gentle Harry had ever heard him.

"I'm well enough."

"I must admit I did not expect to be seeing you today. The headmaster has warned me of your current… _predicament_ and I was under the impression that you are in no fit state to work on your occlumency."

"I'm not here about my occlumency… I wanted to know what you know about being able to split your focus in regards to magic."

"Ahh… and am I meant to believe this has nothing to do with your attempts to save Mr. Finch-Fletchley? You almost killed yourself trying to save him and now you want me to give you advice on how to kill yourself even faster?"

Harry shook his head frantically "The reason I needed to burn through so much magic was because I wasn't able to split my focus, to beat the magic I needed to be able to split my magic and attack it from multiple angles at once… If I was able to, then I wouldn't have been at any risk."

Snape leaned back in his chair and studied Harry intently, eventually after some time had passed he leaned towards Harry and said "Ultimately little is known about splitting focus, I assume you already found this out for yourself before you sought me out…" Snape sighed deeply before settling back in his chair

"I personally know little of the art in relation to magic, however the Dark Lord developed something similar to what you desire. One of the reasons he was so feared on the battlefield was because he was able to 'preload' a spell while casting another, combined with his natural speed meant that he could fire multiple spells almost instantly."

Harry leaned forward eagerly, he was sure he was just about to learn the answer to his problems.

"But the key word is _almost_, despite what it looked like he had not truly split his magic. He just kept practicing his curses, until eventually he was capable of casting them near instantly. It is similar to what the muggles call 'Muscle memory', the Headmaster uses the same technique with his transfiguration. I can tell you that no wand is capable of splitting magic, I do not pretend to know much about wandlore but the core of a wand can only handle one spell at a time. Theoretically if you were skilled enough at wandless magic you could cast magic with a wand while simultaneously casting a completely different spell wandlessly."

Harry nodded sadly, he had expected to be disappointed but he had hoped Snape would have known something he hadn't yet discovered.

"Potter… I'm sorry I was unable to help you, but Professor Flitwick might know more on the subject as the mark of a good dueler is the ability to cast quickly."

* * *

Harry had needed to wait until the weekend before Flitwick could take him to Mr. Ollivander's. He had spent the remainder of the week trying to regain his wandless abilities, it infuriated him that he needed to relearn skills he had mastered years ago.

It was the first time he had been at the same level of his fellow students, many students had noticed that Harry was much weaker than he had been before the break, one such student being Draco Malfoy.

The boy had waited until most of the students were nearby and had then struck "So I hear you were so upset to see Fletchley you almost died of grief _Potter_"

Having long since learned to ignore Malfoy, Harry chose to just keep walking rather than waste his breath arguing with the brat, this had been the wrong move as Malfoy had sent a jinx at Harry's turned back. Normally he would have easily detected the magic racing towards him but with his weaker magic he had been forced to limit his magical awareness, meaning he was currently blind to magic.

The jinx had sent Harry sprawling on the floor to the laughs of the students, Harry turned furious and glared at Malfoy, rather than back down or appear frightened Malfoy just grinned at Harry. Despite being severely weakened Harry was still an exceptional student who had personal training from some of the wisest wizards of the century.

Harry would have preferred to repay Malfoy using his wandless abilities but even Malfoy wouldn't be weak enough to succumb to his weakened ability, he knew several jinxes and charms that would make quick work of Malfoy but he had been told to not use his wand.

Faced with no other choice Harry resorted to thrusting his fist towards Malfoy and channel his magic through the Philosopher's Stone in its ring form, despite the Stone being a magical focus just like a wand it handled magic differently. As such rather than the relatively harmless flipping jinx Harry meant to send, the spell that hit Malfoy flipped his gravitational pull and sent him flying up into the ceiling.

He had needed to waste an afternoon in detention because of that but it had been worth it in Harry's mind.

* * *

"Ahh, Mr. Potter. I did not expect to see you for at least a year. What can I do for you?" Ollivander seemed to have been working on a new wand but he had covered it swiftly before Harry had a chance to see.

"Um, well you see I accidently channeled a lot of magic over Christmas which badly damaged my magic and Dumbledore feared it would have affected my wand too." Harry said sheepishly

"I had heard you had been injured over the holiday but the Prophet hadn't said what had caused it. Very well let me see your wand… oh… Oh, Mr. Potter it is a very good thing you came here, your wand is almost completely unusable. In fact I've rarely seen wands this worn out, only senior Aurors that fought in the war often got this close to wearing out their wands, I am honestly surprised you are able to even stand considering how much magic must have been passed through this wand."

"Is there anything you can do to fix it?" Harry asked sadly

"The only thing that can help this wand is time to recover, considering the amount of damage that has been done I fear this wand will take many years to fully recover. Unless you want to go wandlessly throughout your education you will need to get a new wand, as luck would have it just last week I was struck with inspiration for the creation of a new wand."

Ollivander hurried into the back room and quickly returned with a wand case in hand, when he opened the case Harry was stunned at the quality of the wand inside. It was slightly shorter than his old wand, it was also a dark orange compared to his wand's silver, the strangest part was that the hilt of the wand was covered in what seemed to be a strange quartz like material.

When Ollivander handed over the wand Harry expected some huge reaction to take place, instead the wand simply warmed under his hand. When Harry waved the wand in a whip like manner a trail of air seemed to follow the wands movement, with a final flick upwards the air rushed up and exploded into a burst of colour.

"Oh wonderful!" Ollivander cheered, Harry blushed as he realised Ollivander and Flitwick were both clapping enthusiastically at his display.

"Yes this is clearly a good fit. Blackthorn, 10 inches, unyielding… this wand is unique in that the handle of the wand is made from the petrified wood of an elder tree. You remember me saying you would be well suited with a wand of elder? Well I recently had the opportunity to purchase a large sum of petrified wood from an associate in the muggle world and that particular stone was originally an elder tree, it has kept some of the properties of elder wood but the main power of the wood has been lost. This allows me to use it on a wand as something similar to a focusing crystal on a staff."

Ollivander looked at the wand longingly for a moment, as if he regretted selling it.

"The core was from a particularly territorial white raven, you will find the wand will favour neither delicate or brunt magic, it will serve both equally. In my experience blackthorn wands will often only truly bond with their owner during what is seen as a 'life-threatening' situation, I just hope your wand will prove to be different."

* * *

_I suspect the next chapter will be the last one before Harry takes on the heir, Luna will definitely become a more prominent character next chapter._

_With Harry's injury I am treating magic like a muscle, you need to keep using it to build it up but overuse can damage or rip it, the basilisk is an incredibly old and thus powerful creature and Harry was trying to stop it head on, that would never have gone well._

_Harry's new wand isn't meant to be an answer to his question of splitting magic, the petrified wood will allow him to focus his magic better through the blackthorn. The walnut wand will return much later in the story but for now it's in storage._

_For those who have finished and want something else to read I have just uploaded a second story 'A Conquers guide' it is based in the book series Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix, this story will still be my priority and won't stop the weekly updates._


	38. Ravenclaws Betrayal

Armed with his new wand Harry quickly regained his spot as the most powerful second year, he resented the fact that he was incapable of performing the more powerful magic he had been learning before Christmas but there was little that could be done.

He had also not been cleared to create any more mithril, which left him feeling vulnerable. It was the first time since he had discovered his mithril that he realised he wouldn't always be able to depend upon it to save him, this led to him being more cautious around the other students.

After word of Justin's attack spread the students had become divided, half of the students, mainly Gryffindors and Slytherins, believed he was innocent and couldn't be the heir of Slytherin. The other half thought he was responsible for Justin's fate although not all of them thought he was the heir.

Ernie Macmillan was the most vocal about his 'guilt' and had stirred up most of the Hufflepuffs into following him, some of the Slytherins, being led by Gregory Goyle, believed he had been the one to attack Justin and had stolen then title of heir of Slytherin. Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy were the most adamant about his innocence and tried to get their respective houses to agree with them.

The house that was most divided was Ravenclaw, the second and third years assumed Harry was guilty while the upper years either refused to join a side or argued he had no reason to attack Justin. Nobody had bothered trying to pretend like Harry wasn't capable of performing such magic.

The first years didn't know enough about Harry to build up a firm opinion and the upper years had encouraged them to stay neutral, due to his house's hostility he had entirely moved from his dormitory to his workshop. With assistance from Dumbledore they had added an additional room in the workshop that would serve as his temporary bedroom.

Dumbledore had protected it himself and they had installed a second generation Ward generator, or Mithril Ward as Bathsheda had jokingly called it. It was the only generator Harry had been able to make that used the ward mimic ideology before the Christmas break and Harry's ban from making more mithril.

This meant that in order for Harry to be attacked the assailant would need to first find his room, break through his own defenses, the first gen Ward generator and then bypass Dumbledore's protections and the much more powerful Mithril Ward. Harry didn't know if this was to protect him from what had attacked Justin or from the other students, either way it should be more than enough to keep him safe.

* * *

Harry was on his way to get the last of his things from his old dormitory when he ran into Luna Lovegood, she seemed to be walking around aimlessly but Harry noticed she only had pajamas on under her school cloak and her feet were bare.

He pulled off the invisibility cloak and walked up to her

"Are you alright Luna?"

"Oh, hello Harry, yes I'm fine. It's just I seemed to have been locked out of the common room so I thought I might as well use this time to find my things." Luna said dreamily, although Harry thought he might have heard a touch of sadness.

"Why do you need to find your things?" Harry asked confused

"Well because the nargles stole them of course" Luna said as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

"People have been taking your stuff?" Harry led her to the common room and when he knocked the raven said

"A riddle I have given, yet no answer, I received. The riddle I have given goes thus:

_I'm the sweetest of sounds in Orchestra heard,_

_Yet in Orchestra never was seen._

_I'm a bird of gay plumage, yet less like a bird,_

_Nothing ever in Nature was seen._

_Touch the earth I expire, in water I die,_

_In air I lose breath, yet can swim and can fly;_

_Darkness destroys me, and light is my death,_

_And I only keep going by holding my breath._

_If my name can't be guessed by a boy or a man,_

_By a woman or girl it certainly can._

What am I?"

Harry looked at the door stunned, he had never heard this riddle before and didn't have a clue on how to solve it, he turned to Luna who just shrugged.

"May I ask why this riddle was chosen?" Harry asked

"That was the riddle that was next on the list, it was coined by Samuel Wilberforce in 1873 and has never been answered." The raven replied

"Then why are you asking a first year?"

The ravel did not reply and instead chose to just peer at him intently

"If it has never been answered then how will you know if we get the right answer?" The raven blinked and seemed to become lost in thought for a moment.

"I will know" it said simply

"But how?" Harry insisted

"Because you will know it is a lie"

Harry turned away with disgust and drew his wand, he willed himself to See into the door, with his loss in power he seemed to have lost all his progress with his mage sight. He hoped it was only a temporary setback until he regained his previous strength.

It took a while to get break through the protective barrier before he was able to see inside the enchantments, like the stairs at Malfoy Manor the main enchantment was a conditional enchantment, in order to activate the enchantments which allowed free entry the riddle had to be solved, there was also a bypass that allowed the Headmaster to just deactivate the entire enchantment array for quick entry in.

Even if he had permission to use his mithril Harry doubted it would have helped him gain entry, the condition at Malfoy Manor just wanted a specific magical item and signature, but the conditional here needed a physical password to be said verbally. Every time the password was correctly entered it somehow changed the riddle from the raven and set the answer as the new password.

Harry didn't know how it got the next riddle or what the answer was as the conditional enchantment only took whatever the user said and checked it with something behind the door, which meant Harry couldn't just trick the array into thinking he had said the correct password.

He considered just blasting the door out of its frame but he didn't actually know any spells that would directly achieve that effect and he didn't want to guess the consequences of trying to bodge a spell into doing it. Once more Harry regretted his loss of mithril, it would be a simple 'stick, wait, explode, direct inwards' ideologies and he would be able to stick the mithril to the door, hide around the corner and wait for it to blow.

Looking at his mithril rings he knew he could use what little alchemy he knew to transmute the door into something soft or small and just walk in but Nicolas had locked the Stone after he had used it on Malfoy. He then looked at his second ring, the magical sabre that could rip through anything including wards, it would easily break through the door and enchantments but that might also risk breaking not just the wards around Ravenclaw tower but the wards around all of Hogwarts.

Sighing in defeat Harry turned from the door in disgust and faced Luna

"Turns out I can't get in either, but you can stay in my room for tonight if you want."

* * *

He had decided to give Luna his bed and after routing through his trunk had retrieved the camp bed he had used over the summer, it was comfier than the actual bed as rather than just be enchanted to be comfy it's entire purpose was to provide comfort.

As normal he awoke early, after checking on Luna he quickly dressed and armed himself with some of the more experimental objects he and Bathsheda had developed before his ban, among them the spear he had used against Voldemort.

It seemed nobody had ever noticed that at midnight every night the castle ran automated checks on the wards and enchantments, this included the common rooms. When Harry asked for the riddle rather than the unsolvable one from the night before he only had to answer the 'what came first', a favourite of the raven.

Once inside his common room he gripped his wand tightly and reached out with his magic, he was looking for anything that held Luna's signature. He pulled the closest items to him and put them in a mithril bag, then once he had everything he pulled out what looked like a mithril pen and began writing a short message in the air

'Bullying will not be tolerated, Luna Lovegood is under my protection. - Harry Potter'

The words floated in the air, glowing menacingly, he had found a similar spell in the library one day however that spell wrote the words in fire which didn't appeal to Harry, he wanted something he could show off and claim as his own.

Unlike the original spell these words could only be dispelled by the writer, considering the message was floating in the very center of the common room nobody could claim to miss it.

With that done he headed to Professor Flitwick's office, he knew the man also woke early and liked to read student's essays before going to breakfast. Flitwick looked surprised to see Harry, it could have been something to do with the large bag he had over his shoulder or the spear he held.

"Good morning Harry… is there something I can do for you?"

Harry briefly explained what had been happening with Luna, when he was finished Flitwick looked furious. He followed Harry to his workshop and spoke to Luna in private, while they talked Harry fiddled nervously with his wand. Eventually Flitwick left to go talk to the Ravenclaws, he told Harry and Luna to stay in the room.

"Do you want to hear what he's saying?" Harry asked Luna after a moment of silence

Luna looked at him strangely but nodded hesitantly. Harry flicked his wand at what looked like an old muggle radio, but rather than play music it would repeat whatever was said near the mithril stone it was linked to, which was currently stuck to the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw.

It was easy to tell when the speaker activated as Flitwick's voice boomed out of it.

"I don't care why you did it Ms. Edgecombe, you do _not_ take another student's belongings, especially not from a first year! I expect everything to be returned by tonight and no more will be said about it. I must say I am extremely disappointed by everyone's attitude this year, one new student bullied and another forced to leave his dormitory… I expected you to be smarter than this."

"But sir, Harry attacked Justin!" Harry wasn't sure who had said it as the speaker distorted the voice slightly but he could guess it was a member of his year group.

"There has been no evidence of that other than your own convictions, the Headmaster believes in his innocence… What would Harry gain by attacking his fellow students?"

Harry decided to switch off the speaker before anyone had a chance to respond, he didn't want to hear the excuses the Ravenclaws came up with, to him they had made their decision to abandon him and he wasn't about to forgive them anytime soon.

"Have you learned the levitation charm yet?" Harry asked Luna, at her nod he conjured two strips of wood and levitated one.

"Basically levitate the other piece of wood and we see who can get the wood to go the fastest"

* * *

_This chapter took longer than planned, in part due to my school closing and all the work associated with it, as such this chapter suffered._

_I have finally rewritten the first chapter, overall it changes little to the story but it should now be easier to read._

_For Harry I don't see him returning to Ravenclaw anytime soon, but he has now taken the first steps into building a friendship with Luna. The game they play at the end is the same racing game Harry and Ron used to play when they were friends._

_In terms of what has been happening that Harry doesn't know about all I will say_ _is Dobby hasn't just been sitting around waiting for Harry to call him, I also have a question, who do you think would win, Sixth year Tom Riddle or second year Harry Potter?_


	39. Teaching the Teacher

Time passed quickly for Harry, Luna had moved back into her own dormitory but she had started visiting him regularly. Sometimes she wanted help with classwork which Harry would gladly explain to her, other times she just wanted company, something Harry could easily understand.

At Dumbledore's repeated urgings Harry had finally agreed to talk to Lockhart about his teaching methods after several lessons of listening to the man just read aloud from his own books, Harry had chosen to strike right after lesson when he knew the professor wouldn't have any excuses to not talk to him.

"Professor Lockhart… I wanted to talk to you about your lessons"

"Ask away Harry! I will gladly answer any questions you have!" Lockhart said brightly, grinning widely

"Well you see… I have grave doubts you have ever actually done any of the deeds you claim to have done."

Lockhart's smile dropped instantly and he started fiddling with his wand anxiously, Harry eyed the wand suspiciously and surreptitiously increased his magical protection.

"Ahh, well what gives you that impression?" Lockhart asked slowly

"Apart from the fact you can't cast any of the spells you said you have done in your books?"

"Of course I can do the spells" Lockhart said defensively

"Prove it, in Year with a Yeti you said you can cast a perfect shielding charm, cast it now."

"I hardly think it would be appropriate to cast it now Harry…"

Rather than reply Harry swiftly drew his wand and started shooting jinxes at his professor, he deliberately slowed down the jinxes to make them move slower than normal. For a reason Harry hadn't yet figured out most wizards seemed to think that spells only went one speed and that only powerful spells went slowly, this was of course completely wrong and a spell can move as fast as the caster willed.

The only reason most people that did know, such as Dumbledore or Nicolas, didn't make all of their spells ridiculously fast was because the faster you made a spell move the more magic was used relative to the power needed for the spell. So a basic tripping jinx was easy to speed up or slow down while a more powerful spell like Reducto took much more magic to see any change in speed.

As Harry expected, rather than shield or move an object into the path of the jinxes, Lockhart instead tumbled awkwardly to the side and cowered in fear behind his desk.

"I must say, it's a good thing I'm not a werewolf" Harry said dryly

"Detention Harry! I will be speaking to Dumbledore about this!" Lockhart said shakily

"No, you won't. You will teach me all you know about defense, including every defensive spell you have heard of. In return I will teach you how to actually cast the spells you claim to know and won't reveal that you are in fact a fraud. How does that sound?" Harry asked cockily

"Harry, Harry… that sounds like a brilliant - Obliviate!" Lockhart quickly jabbed his wand at Harry and a dark blue spell shot across the room at him, it would have caught Harry by surprise if he wasn't expecting the man to try something.

When the spell got in range of his magical defense he began stripping the spell to shreds, he quickly identified the intent to erase his memory and began shoring up his own intent to remember. He hadn't quite regained his full power or speed back so he wasn't able to fully break the spell.

When what was left of the spell splashed against him and started trying to make him forget that the meeting had ever taken place he was able to use his occlumency to keep the hostile magic away from his mind and was able to destroy what was left before any damage was done.

Once done with the magic Harry turned to Lockhart and said "Do you want to try that again or have you given up?"

Looking up he was pleased to see Lockhart's face had lost all of it's colour and his hand was shaking at his side "How? Nobody has ever stopped it before… That shouldn't be possible!"

"Yeah well it seems there's a lot you apparently don't know, so do we have a deal?" To emphasize his stance Harry raised his wand threateningly

"Yes fine, we have a deal!"

"Excellent, I will be back tomorrow after the lesson, I would suggest you make a list of spells you need to teach and hand them to me before then."

* * *

That evening Lockhart passed Harry a list of spells on his way to the staff table, Luna looked at him curiously so he shrugged and shoved the note into his pocket "Extra work for defense against the dark arts"

After dinner Harry went to the library, he needed to look up the spells on the list and he could act suspiciously and hide what he was looking for, it would be the Gryffindor thing to do and would no doubt take forever. Fortunately for all involved Harry was a Ravenclaw so he just walked up to Madam Pince and handed her the list of spells.

"Professor Lockhart asked me to look into these spells, do you know of any books that might help me?"

Pince looked over the list carefully and nodded slowly "Most of these can be found in 'A defensive theorem' by John R Moon, if I recall correctly it was the set text for the fourth years, about three or so years ago I would say. The last few spells are covered in more detail in 'defending the dark arts' by Abraxas Malfoy, which is generally recommended for students in OWL year."

After thanking her Harry went to his normal study spot and summoned the books to him, he quickly skimmed through both and wrote down everything he could find about the spells on his list, he also recorded a few spells that he thought could be useful.

Now armed with the spells Harry returned the books and left for his workshop, once inside he checked the intent and incantation of each spell and kept trying until he could successfully cast each and every curse somewhat reliantly. For the stronger spells Harry often had to wait several moments between tries to recover some of his magic.

He didn't have anyone to test them on so he wasn't sure he was giving them enough power to be effective but as Lockhart wouldn't be using the curses on his students, the power of his spells didn't matter either. If any of the older students called Lockhart out on this he could easily claim there was no point wasting power on just showing the spells.

Most of the curses were just variations of the basic prank jinxes that the older years always taught to the first years, although some were the equivalent of weaponized charms, such as Petrificus Totalus which was the freezing charm but specialised to only work on a living being.

* * *

Harry awoke slowly the next day, he had no intention of going to defense that day so he allowed himself to sleep in. Once he had gotten up properly he ran through the list of spells one more time and went to the defense classroom under a notice-not, he waited until all of his classmates left the room before sneaking in.

"Good morning professor" Harry said, dropping the notice-not as he didn't think Lockhart would be strong enough to see through it. True to form Lockhart jumped about a foot into the air at Harry's 'sudden' appearance.

"Ah, Harry! I… I didn't expect to see you today."

"I said I would help you, but this also helps me since I can practice the spells. The first question I had for you is how exactly you get the idea to write your books, considering your reaction to me pointing out you are a fraud and the spell you tried to use against me was a memory charm... I imagine you steal other people's work by making them forget about it?"

"Err, well in a way I _suppose_ you could see it that way… but really I see myself as just -" Harry cut Lockhart off before he could go into an excuse, Harry didn't care enough to be polite and pretend to listen.

"So you wipe their memories and take the credit for yourself, before you memory charm them do you just learn about their deeds or do you take their knowledge of magic too?"

"Well what sort of Ravenclaw would I be if I didn't learn all I could?! Never been able to cast the blasted spells but I wasn't going to let that knowledge just waste away in some wizard's head." Lockhart said indignantly, with just a hint of pride in his voice.

Harry found himself slightly appalled by the man's unremorseful admittance of stealing people's entire life's work but at the same time relieved at hearing that he now had access to possibly forgotten magic.

"Whatever, so first off I assume you remember the difference between a curse, jinx and hex?" Harry said absently

"I… think so. They're basically just different severities of spell right?"

"You are hopeless" Harry moaned "Okay, so a jinx affects the target instantly and leaves no lasting magical effect, such as a tripping or flipping jinx. A hex can take some time to have an effect and can be dispelled by a single charm, often a finishing spell like Finite, if it can't be dispelled then it's always either a curse or jinx. Take for example Stupify, it's a hex since it can take a while to make the target fall unconscious and can be dispelled instantly with enervate."

"So it doesn't have anything to do with deadliness?" Lockhart asked slowly

"Nope, almost every jinx and hex could be used lethally in the right circumstance, like hitting someone next to a cliff with a tripping jinx or someone allergic to milk with the butter mouth hex. A curse is simply a spell that leads the victim with an undesirable affliction that cannot be easily dispelled, so anything from the tongue tying curse to the torture curse."

"Does that mean the killing curse isn't actually a curse?"

"Do you see being dead as a desirable affliction?" Harry asked as if trying to get a small child to realise something simple.

"Oh, I didn't think of that… so I just tell the students the difference? That sounds easy enough"

Harry rolled his eyes "Yes, you should also ensure you are teaching the actual theory that is needed for the exams, I wouldn't mind you including any facts you have found out while making your books but don't just read them aloud. They have nothing to do with the subject and just make people resent you, I hope for your sake you at least know the theory needed for defense even if you can't do the practical."

"Oh yes, I'm quite brilliant with the theory, got an E on my NEWT defense paper!" Lockhart said happily

"Well at least I don't need to teach you that since I don't know most of the theory myself. Why did you take defense as a NEWT if you couldn't do the spells?"

"Well my father wanted me to follow in his footsteps of becoming an auror and with you-know-who around defense practically became a compulsory subject, I always thought charms was my strong point though… and potions." Lockhart looked away distantly as if remembering his own time as a student and Harry had to snap him out of it before he continued.

"Where was I? Yes I'm fairly sure I can teach you lot the theory, I just need a bit of help with the spells"

"Right, well the first spell on the list was the sunlight jinx, the incantation is 'Solis' and you draw a circle before jabbing your wand through the center of the circle. You want your arm to be in a straight line as you jab, if done successfully a straight beam of light will leave your wand, the width of the beam seems to always be half the size of the circle drawn in the incantation. Any ideas about what it could be used for?"

"Well I think it was Hector Strix who I heard it from, he used it against the Vorsma Vampire. He said it didn't quite kill the vampire as the spell only mimics sunlight but it did was severely weaken the beast, he then used a strong compulsion on it so that the vampire would only be unable to eat meat without thinking of sunlight."

"Very good, can you think of any other instances where the jinx would be useful? Without relying on what someone else has said"

"I suppose blinding an opponent… I guess it can't easily be blocked"

"Good, it is also fatal against devil's snare among most other cave dwelling plants. It has been theorised that it would also weaken werewolves as the sunlight would lesson the power of the full moon, but as nobody has been stupid enough to try it against a transformed werewolf we may never know."

"I can use that, link it into the wagga wagga werewolf…"

"Whatever, so what other spells did you learn from this Hector Strix?" Harry said impatiently, frustrated with Lockhart's limited attention span

Lockhart told Harry all of the many interesting spells and theory Hector had gathered before his unfortunate meeting with Lockhart. Most were defensive or offensive spells but there were still a few spells for transfiguration or charms and even a shortcut in a fairly complex potion.

So it went on, Harry would teach Lockhart a spell and make sure the man could at the very least demonstrate it without dropping his wand and then Lockhart would teach him mildly advanced magical knowledge.

Eventually Harry called a rest after teaching Lockhart the final fourth year spell, the basic shield spell Armum. It made a small disk of magic expand out from the wand tip, like a miniature umbrella and should be able to stop most basic spells and projectiles.

Some duelists had been able to overpower the shield which either made it expand much larger or reflect most spells back towards their caster, the difference depended on whether the duelist ended the spell with a flick or a jab, although Harry didn't understand why that would make any difference.

His only shield flickered feebly and the galleon Lockhart threw passed through the shield easily, Harry decided he had reached his limit magically and told Lockhart he would be back after dinner before heading off for a large lunch and then charms.

* * *

The afternoon passed much like the morning, Harry teaching and Lockhart learning. Having had time for his magical reserves to almost fully replenish he was able to cast most of the fifth and sixth year spells, he doubted they would stand up to any assault and his sword maker hex came out as a misshapen dagger, but they were good enough for Lockhart to successfully copy them.

Harry had noticed that Lockhart was learning the spells much quicker, it took the man the same amount of time to cast the sunlight jinx as the sword maker hex. This meant Lockhart had managed to go from the knowledge of a first year to that of a late sixth year in just one afternoon.

Just as Harry was about to move onto the next spell he heard a voice, it was the same bone chilling voice that he had heard before, the voice that had attacked Mrs Norris and Justin.

Without a second thought Harry dashed out of the classroom and set off after the voice, distantly he heard Lockhart call after him but he ignored the man.

The voice was getting louder and more distinct "Blood… want blood… need blood… must eat…"

Harry instinctively activated his mage sight to full power, stumbling slightly at the overload of information he was now receiving. He looked around frantically but couldn't see anything, it sounded like the voice was coming from right beside him, but he was at the edge of the castle so he knew there wasn't another corridor on the other side of the wall, which meant unless the person was somehow inside the wall he must be in the corridor.

Suddenly the voice veered upwards, causing Harry to sprint down the next corridor towards the nearest staircase. Luck seemed to be on his side as the stairs led exactly where he wanted, the voice seemed to have disappeared and Harry could only keep running down this new corridor until he reached the crowd.

Dumbledore looked up from the body when Harry skidded to a stop before him, the man shook his head slowly and meaningfully at Harry before flicking his wand and levitating the body away.

"Caught in the act!" Harry turned to see Ernie pointing at him fiercely, it seemed the boy had just arrived

"Idiot, Harry's only just turned up!" Ron said defensively

"He's the heir of Slytherin! The house known for cunning, he could have attacked Jackson and hid somewhere before running up. How else would he know where to go?" That voice came from an older Ravenclaw boy, who was glaring daggers at Harry

"Do you really think _he_ is cunning enough to be the heir of Slytherin? He's not even of pure blood" Malfoy said coolly

"Really Draco? You're supporting this half breed?" Another boy said fiercely, this one dressed in the green of Slytherin.

"I'm not supporting anyone, I'm defending the honour of this house. If it was someone from the great house of Slytherin they would be far more ambitious than Potter could even hope to be. Why, if _I_ was the heir I wouldn't just limit myself to mudbloods, I'd go for the half bloods and blood traitors too"

Harry quickly applied a notice-not to make sure no one noticed him before leaving the students to continue arguing and hurried after the headmaster, once

"Who is it this time?" Harry asked quietly once he had caught up

Dumbledore sighed sadly and said "Jackson Lake, fourth year Hufflepuff… Muggleborn"

* * *

News of yet another attack spread quickly, fear became evident in most of the students, with only the Slytherin's seemed unaffected. The next morning Dumbledore had suggested to the students that they should avoid traveling alone and to not wander the halls aimlessly.

Due to the state of fear, Lockhart's overnight progress in becoming a better teacher seemed to go mostly unnoticed, Harry overheard some of the older years complain about how simple the classes still were but they had admitted he was teaching the theory well.

* * *

Eventually Dumbledore gave Harry permission to start using his mithril again and he quickly began work on remaking his backup mithril bands, rather than make an entire band in one sitting over the weekend, Harry instead pushed any spare magic he had at night into all six of his bands.

It was a far slower system but it meant Harry was able to charge them more regularly, he also gave them the ideologies of weightlessness and compact density, Harry hoped that by making the bands dense they would be able to store more magic while taking up the same amount of space.

He wished he could make them into generators but the trouble was that the magic generated by them to go somewhere when it wasn't being used, by default this went into the mithrils size which wasn't an option. Other consistent ways to burn off the magic was light and heat, both of which would be obvious and potentially dangerous.

Which was why he was currently working on a way to transmit magic without a physical connection, scattered around him and Bathsheda were various mithril objects, all different shapes and sizes.

They had been coming up with theories over how to achieve this effect since his ban and now that he had been given permission to go back to work they had tried out each of the theories, the first had been a simple 'transmit magic' ideology which admittedly did transmit magic but only to anything touching it.

The trouble was that magic didn't like being exposed to the open air, one of the reasons wards needed almost constant power was because the magic was constantly being drained. Even spells suffered although the intent and will behind a spell helped decrease how much magic was lost during transition.

But casting the magic with the intent to move into another mithril object didn't work either, once it arrived at the receiving mithril it was for some unknown reason unusable. For the moment Harry had given up on the idea of transmitting magic over the air and had settled for what he called incorporeal wires.

Some of the ideologies on the wires were 'incorporeal, magical transmission, unnoticeable'. This allowed the wires would pass through anything, including himself, and transmit the magic over the wires. He then used the wires to connect all of his bands together so that they were one unbroken circuit.

Now he just needed a way to power them, he didn't want to use the gauntlet as the magic made from the Stone was addictive and he didn't want to become dependent on the power made from the Stone.

Instead he was making something he called the 'core', it comprised of three layers, first he started with a marble sized mithril sphere which he grew to the size of a beach ball, Bathsheda then drew the runes needed to turn it into a generator and quickly sent a freezing charm at the runes.

The freezing charm paused the runes which meant the sphere wouldn't grow until they were ready, now that the runes were on it Harry shrunk it back down to its original size and started the second layer, this wrapped around the sphere and forced it to shrink. Just before he let the layer begin its work Bathsheda would cancel the freezing charm, due to the nature of the mithril they would now forever fight each other and spend all their spare energy shrinking and expanding.

Once those two layers were finished the sphere noticeably shifted and kept expanding and retracting. Which was why Harry quickly formed the third and final layer, this one 'collected' the magic given out by the two layers beneath it. It also left a small gap between itself and the second layer which meant the slight changes that affected it before vanished.

The core was now about the size of a golf ball and gave off half as much magic as a normal mithril generator, but the core was much smaller and easier to move without putting Harry at risk. He then shrunk the entire core down to the size of a marble and stuck it onto the band around one of his ankles, he felt the bands grow slightly as they absorbed the new influx of magic but they soon settled.

This was the key benefit of the core, it could control how much magic was given off by changing how violently the two bottom layers fought. Both layers could be stopped by the third layer applying a freezing charm to the second layer which in turn froze the first.

The core would only activate when the band it was attached to began to shrink, as all of the bands were linked in series if one shrank then it meant they all were shrinking, so the core would activate and try to get the bands back up to their normal size.

All Harry had to watch out for was if any magic built up inside the core, Harry didn't want to know what would happen with a large build up of magic in a small enclosed space, especially when that build up was stuck to his leg.

* * *

_I wasn't convinced this chapter was long enough but somehow it's around 4000 words long. _

_The next chapter will be Harry trying to figure out who the heir is, now that he has access to his mithril there's nothing holding him back._

_Despite being on my computer much more I have somehow felt like I've had less time to write, since I normally write between my lessons but now I've got access to games... But everyone loves a good murder mystery! _


	40. A lesson in time

Within his alchemy lessons they had moved onto the topic of time, it was basically the last topic they could cover in alchemy without actually _doing_ alchemy.

"Many have studied time, there is an entire sub-department dedicated to time in the department of Mysteries. The first thing to know about time is that it will always happen, the march of time is unstoppable and no matter what it will never end. But time is not infallible, as such time travel is possible in numerous ways, the first is with a time turner. A time turner must be made with a mix of fairy and wizard magick, the fairy magick provides the basis for the actual travel. In essence each time a turner is used it makes a deal with Time to ensure nothing will change when time resumes its path."

"If nothing will change when time resumes, what's the point?" Harry asked curiously

"Ah, but this is where the wizard magick comes in, you see the wizard magic somehow cheats this deal by making it so anything that happens once a witch or wizard goes back in time _already_ happened, from the point of view of an observer nothing would had changed when the time traveler went back, but that is only because they already went back. The act of taking a time turner and going back in time means that the future you already did it, if you were to go back in time and take a book from the bookshelf then a future you would have already taken that book and when time resumed its course you would see that the book was still missing."

Harry tried to wrap his head around this idea, it was a rather strange concept to grasp "But if my future self already went back in time to change events why would I need to go back?"

"Because if you didn't then events would revert back and the deal struck by the turner would break, there has never been a recorded event of this ever happening, which either means every person that has used a time turner has been exceptionally lucky or those that did break the deal were somehow removed from time. If they never existed in the first place then no deal would have ever been struck."

That… was not a pleasant thought, Harry wondered how many witches or wizards had been erased from time because they somehow broke the turners contract

"You said there were other ways to travel through time, how many ways are there Nicolas?"

"Too many, but the main ways are either time turner, a deal with the fae or time dilation. Time dilation is the most common type of time 'travel' although it is the least controlled, have you ever gone to sleep only to wake up almost immediately only to find it's already the morning? Well then you've done time dilation. This is where it ties into alchemy, high level magic requires a sacrifice which can't be fulfilled by magic alone, one of the safest sacrifices is Time.

"Both time of your life or immediate lose of time work although the second is the more powerful, during the construction of my Stone I needed to sacrifice an entire year to age a vital ingredient by ten years, the cost was that I was unable to work on any other ingredient during that year as I was in a magical coma for that duration, but I didn't need to delay my entire project by another nine years."

Nicolas went on to explain how the power of time played into other areas of magic, such as potions and arithmancy. It was why astronomy was a compulsory subject, the position of the planets held great sway as they were the easiest way of magically tracking the passage of time.

* * *

To say people were scared would be an understatement, several times fights had broken out in the corridors. The upper years had elected to escort the younger years to their lessons, whether this was to protect them from the fights or the heir was left unsaid.

Despite the paranoia of the students several of them had quickly realised Harry was still one of the strongest students in the school. Uneasy with the attention and knowing the students that feared him could decide to start attacking him Harry had started to avoid the main corridors, he also wore a notice-not almost constantly.

There had been a nasty incident where a sixth year Hufflepuff had tried to attack Harry when he had been walking between lessons, the boy had struck without warning and only his near constant awareness of magic allowed Harry to sense the spell and dive out of the way.

As he rolled Harry turned and used one of Lockhart's spells, the wand motion was a simple jab and the incantation, 'pulto', was a modification on the stinging jinx. But rather than just sting the victim once it would repeatedly strike the target until the hex was dispelled.

Rather than just fly in a straight line the striking hex zigzagged, making it hard to block with a conventional shield, which alongside it's naturally fast speed made it very hard to block.

The sixth year's eyes widened as the light purple hex flew towards him, he just managed to predict the path of the spell and put up a shield to block the shield moments before the spell was about to strike him. But while the boy was occupied with the spell Harry had used the opportunity to cast the significantly harder smoke screen charm.

Relying solely on his mage sight Harry was able to see through the smoke and sent various spells at his attacker, then once the boy was off balance enough from the spells Harry willed his magic to imbue the smoke. Now that he controlled the smoke he made it whirlwind around the boy, keeping him focused on the smoke.

Finally Harry fired the stunning spell, the sixth year had accidently turned his back on Harry and so never saw the spell coming. A hush had fallen over the gathered students the entire fight but now that there was a clear victor they started leaving the area.

Taking a moment to memorise the boy's face Harry had applied a notice-not and left for his workshop. As was typically in Hogwarts word had spread quickly of the fight, although as with all rumours it had been blown out of proportion.

"Alice seems to be under the impression you had a duel against 5 seventh years and still managed to walk away without a scratch." Luna said blandly the next day over breakfast

"Does she? I don't know why, it was a single sixth year and my shoulder still hurts from where I had to dodge that spell." Harry grumbled

* * *

"Erm, hiya Harry, I'm Colin Creevey… I - Luna said you might be able to help me?" Harry looked up from his book to see a nervous looking first year dressed in Gryffindor robes.

"What do you need help with?" Harry asked guardedly, not used to any students aside from Luna actually talking to him

"Well we're meant to write an essay on the incendio charm but I don't really understand how to do it." Colin said miserably

"Don't understand how to write an essay or the charm?"

"The charm, I wasn't able to get it to work in lesson even though everyone else managed it."

"Okay, show me the charm and I'll try and help you." Harry said tiredly

"Incendio!" Colin waved his wand in a passable imitation of the wand movement

"Try and cast it slower and be more precise with the movement, _Incendio_, see that flick I did at the end? That should make it easier for you to cast it." Harry spent the next half an hour helping Colin until he could cast the charm successfully.

"The trick is to try and get the wand movement down first, how fast you cast it doesn't matter. Likewise repetitive attempts to cast a spell will actually increase your chances of getting it right since your will to get the spell to work will keep building every time you fail. So next time you get stuck on a spell try and keep what you want from the spell in mind at all times and just keep going until it works."

"Thank you so much Harry! I knew they were wrong when they said you were evil." Colin said cheerfully as he left.

* * *

Harry was sitting in his workshop playing with a design for a shield when the Grey Lady poked her head through the wall "Myrtle has gotten upset again and has tried to drown herself, she won't listen to us and we wondered if you would mind talking to her yourself?"

Ever since Headless Nick's deathday party some of the ghosts he had spoken to would seek him out to ask for his help, twice now he had been asked to talk to Myrtle before she flooded the entire second floor.

When Harry entered Myrtle's bathroom he noticed just how much water had gathered, absently he willed the water to pool over the drains and heat up. As the water began to boil Harry climbed up to the window Myrtle was floating by.

"Good Afternoon Myrtle, what's the matter?"

"Oh, hello Harry. Somebody threw a book through me!"

"Deliberately?"

"I'm not sure, one moment I'm just sitting in my toilet and the next I've got a book passing through me. It hurt too." Myrtle seemed to have cheered up at being able to discuss her latest issue, it was strange how quickly Myrtle could go from depressed to overjoyed with just a few words.

"Wait, the book _hurt_ you?" As ghosts had no physical body, much like the fae, they didn't have any pain receptors left to feel pain, only dark magic that targeted the magic of a person could actually be felt by a ghost.

Myrtle nodded cheerfully and pointed to a book that was now floating in the middle of drain, steam rising all around it. Despite the fact the water around the book was boiling hot the book looked completely untouched.

Harry frowned when he couldn't summon the book, hopping down to the floor Harry went over to the book, trusting the impervious charms on his shoes to protect him from the boiling water.

Immediately he flinched away from the book, it felt wrong to Harry, which confirmed his guess that it was 'dark' magic. He Looked at the magic of the book and frowned even more when he saw the soft yellow signature, he knew it was familiar but couldn't remember where he had seen it.

* * *

For a reason Harry couldn't explain he had kept the book and hadn't told anyone he had it, the diary had some of the strongest protections he had even seen. He suspected most of the protections must have been conditional protections, having only just managed to break through the first of the enchantments on Dippet's book on conditional magic he wasn't confident he would be able to break into Riddle's diary.

The name of the diary was the most confusing, he had recognised the initials of T. Riddle but he didn't know why, it wasn't until he had gotten a letter from Xenophilius, or 'Rook' if they used their code, had mentioned checking the Greater Hangleton graveyard for anything Harry might have missed that Harry remembered.

'Thomas Matteo Riddle, born 1905, died… early 1940s…' Harry thought carefully, trying to remember what the gravestone had said 'He died the same day as his parents, Frank said the police couldn't figure how they died which indicates magic was involved, especially if Tom was a wizard. The diary must have writing hidden in it, nobody would put so much protection on an empty diary, nobody would try to throw away an empty diary.'

For the time being Harry had tucked the diary inside his bag, he didn't trust it to stay inside his workshop, but he didn't want to just get rid of it. He had found himself incapable of handing it to Dumbledore or just throwing it away, he felt like he had found it and so it would fall to him to study it.

* * *

When February 14th rolled around Harry was momentarily stunned when he walked inside the great hall that morning, the hall looked hideous with love hearts and flowers everywhere. Sitting proudly at the staff table Lockhart looked far too pleased with himself to be innocent, Harry glared at the man and silently promised to not hold back in their next lesson.

After the first few lessons of Harry teaching Lockhart he had solved his problem of not having anyone to test the spells on, he would test his spells on Lockhart while the man tried to dodge and defend. It was a good way for Harry to make sure his spells acted as intended and it encouraged Lockhart to learn how to avoid being hit.

Lockhart had quickly mastered two different shield charms and had developed a dodging and shielding technique that Harry had difficulty defeating, for Harry it was good to be able to practice against a moving target. Trying to hit Lockhart had also taught Harry the necessity of being creative with his attacks.

He had told himself he wouldn't use his mithril against Lockhart in the hope that he wouldn't be helpless if he was ever in another situation were he couldn't use his mithril, so without his mithril he couldn't brute force his way through Lockhart's shields as the man was somehow extremely powerful once he had learned how to properly cast spells.

And now he had betrayed Harry's trust by engineering such an outlandish attack on Hogwarts' already fragile sense of safety.

"Cheer up Harry, it's just valentines day." Luna said cheerfully, tucking into her second batch of heart shaped pancakes

"It's against everything I've ever stood for." Harry said in mock seriousness, staring in disgust at his love themed breakfast.

Lockhart chose that moment to stand up and start talking, Harry happily tuned him out and continued eating but looked up when the doors to the hall opened and revealed about a dozen winged dwarfs. Not just regular people that were small but actual dwarfs, near human magical beings famous for their mining and craftsmanship.

It seemed Lockhart had hired them for the day as postmen, Harry suspected the man had some sort of blackmail on the dwarfs as they would normally be too prideful to take part in such a humiliating activity.

Harry quickly learned that either the dwarfs could see through notice-nots or his magic had no effect on him, one dwarf had spent most of the day chasing Harry around the school, only his ability to see the secret passages allowed Harry to keep his distance.

The dwarf finally caught up to him on the moving stairs, there were too many students on the staircase so Harry couldn't just weave between them and if he started pushing people out of the way his notice-not would fall.

Later Harry wished he had pushed people out of the way, rather than just land and talk to him the dwarf decided to land on top of Harry. The weight of the dwarf sent Harry crashing into the staircase, which dispelled his notice-not and caused everyone around him to stare in curiosity.

As he fell his bag decided to empty its contents, including Riddle's diary. The dwarf began to sing horribly off key but all Harry could focus on was the diary, despite the dwarf's small stature he was far too heavy for Harry to dislodge, he considered using magic but didn't want to know what the dwarf could do if angered.

Fortune was not on Harry's side as a hand reached down and picked up the diary, the hand was small and quickly left Harry's view, he only caught a glimpse of the scarlet trim on the robe before the person fled.

* * *

The next day Harry awoke to the sound of gongs, having just woken up it took him a moment to realise the importance, the gongs were the signal that somebody was trying to break into his room with force.

Harry quickly jumped out of his bed and hurried into the main room, the Invisibility Cloak jumping from its position on the bed to wrap around his shoulders, he wrote a short message on his communication stone and sent it to Dumbledore.

Once done he activated his gauntlet and drew his saber, he knew the door had the combined protections of himself and Dumbledore but the fact the attacker had managed to activate the alarm meant they were powerful enough to break through his first line of defense.

The magic of the door began to give way and dark red magic began oozing through, the same dark red of Voldemort from the year before. Just before the door gave way Harry threw his spear with as much might as he could, it was programmed to always hit it's target and would return to his hand within moments.

Harry began sending wave after wave of spells at the doorway and then hid under his Cloak and waited, he waited for a while before Dumbledore ran into the room, spinning around quickly to try and find where the attacker was.

"Dumbledore?" Harry asked cautiously, remaining hidden under his Cloak.

"Harry! Where are you?" Dumbledore asked urgently, the headmaster sent out a revealing charm as he talked and Harry felt the wave of Dumbledore's magic wash over through him.

The power of the elder Wand fought the power of the Cloak and Harry knew the Cloak had lost when Dumbledore turned to look at him straight in the eyes.

"Harry? Are you unharmed?"  
"Yes, Voldemort didn't get in, I think he ran away after I threw the spear at him." Harry said shakily

"Voldemort? He was here? Then things are worse than I thought…" Dumbledore said gravely

* * *

There was a double attack that night, a Gryffindor and Slytherin, Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy. They had been found beneath a message "Blood traitors and deserters alike, all shall fear the Heir of Slytherin."

It had driven the message home that nobody was safe, not even the purebloods in Slytherin, at lunch Harry had received a letter from Wulfric, it was incredibly short and only said 'Be at Hagrid's before 7, stay there, do not hide.' As lessons had been canceled for the day Harry had started work on his latest idea, that morning, when he had thought he was about to be attacked, his mind had gone blank.

He hadn't been able to come up with a single idea on how to make something to help him, once the rush of adrenaline had faded he realised how much danger he had been in. He had thought in a crisis he would have the luxury to fully form a mithril object specifically for the situation, forgetting it normally took him hours to work out the right combination of ideologies.

So he had started work on his new motto 'always be prepared', he planned to have several general purpose mithril objects that he could keep on him at all times that would allow him to quickly counter anything that may attack him.

The first item he needed was a shield, if Voldemort had pushed into the room and started throwing curses Harry would've had very little protection. His shields still couldn't block Lockhart's more powerful curses, this meant he couldn't rely on his magic either.

As it would be fairly awkward to carry a full shield and he didn't want to rely on metaphysical summoning, over the summer he had discovered an issue with his flask and saber that he had missed while at Hogwarts, as the objects only came to him when he called they needed to be summoned to his ring before they could be made physical, it had taken almost half an hour for his flask to fly from Hogwarts to the Dursleys when he had first called it.

For his water and saber that wasn't all that important, but he didn't want to wait for his shield to fly across the country while spells were flying at him. That meant the shield had to be small enough to easily fit on him without being overly obvious. Ideally he would have the shield shrink to the size of a watch and grow to its full size when powered, but that would require power going into growing and not protecting.

It would take at least ten seconds for the shield to fully grow, during which Harry's mobility would be decreased. Having ruled out those ideas he moved on to how he would power the shield, if he didn't want to expand the shield he could limit it to just the mithril's own magic and a mithril core to keep it stable.

The easiest solution would be to have his shield be physically small and have it activate a magical shield like protego, which would be the main source of protection while the physical part of the shield would be able to block anything that would pass through a magical shield.

Harry grinned when he realised he wasn't limited to just one shield charm, he could layer various shields together with his mithril, one shield for purely magical attacks, a second shield for physical attacks such as elemental powers and animals and finally a dismantling shield.

A dismantling shield was widely considered theoretical only, the idea was it would rip apart any spell that hit it, but the amount of magic it took to power that shield would need to be much stronger than the spells hitting it. Some wizards like Dumbledore could make a shield that did something similar but they could only keep the shield up for seconds at most.

It would be a bad idea to put that shield first as even his mithril could be drained, when he and Bathsheda had started work on the mithril ward they had experimented with shields, the mithril would activate and keep the shield powered indefinitely as the magic within the mithril produced exactly the right amount of magic.

But every time a spell hit the shield it would lose some power, possibly because the mithril didn't expect the shield to be hit so it never produced any magic to account for spell damage. With Harry's shield the mithril core would be able to deal with spell damage while the mithril itself kept the shield up, but the mithril core wouldn't be able to keep up with dismantling every single spell that hit it.

In truth Harry wouldn't have bothered with a dismantling shield if it wasn't for the fact that they were capable of stopping 'unblockable' spells. There had been many arguments over whether the fact even the unforgivables could technically be dismantled meant they couldn't be unblockable, often people said the spells were being destroyed not blocked so _technically_ they were still unblockable.

When Harry left his workshop that night he had made great progress on the shield, he had eventually settled on having the shield fold into a single slice that would sit on his forearm under a notice-not, he planned on making it so that when he activated his shield the slices would start to rotate. Every so often it would leave a single slice behind, until it rejoined the first slice to form a perfect shield.

Once all the slices were in position the shield charms would activate, the shield would be about a foot in diameter when activated, big enough to go from Harry's elbow to wrist. The shield charms would then be almost 3.5 feet in diameter, any larger and even his mithril struggled to naturally sustain the shield.

* * *

It was far too easy for Harry to sneak out of the castle and down to Hagrid's, even with his invisibility cloak, Hagrid answered his door on the second knock. Harry stepped back when he had a crossbow stuck in his face.

"Easy Hagrid, it's just me, Harry." Harry said cautiously, pulling back his cloak so Hagrid could see his face.

"Oh Harry, wasn' expectin' to see yeh at this time o' night" Hagrid said sheepishly

The two talked about nothing important, just enjoying each others company, that was until they were disturbed by a sharp knock on the door

"Yeh'd better get under tha' cloak, Harry"

"Why? I'm allowed to be down here, I'm not breaking any rules." Harry said softly, not wanting to upset one of his oldest friends

"oh fine then, I ain' gonna stop yeh"

Hagrid was rather obviously shocked when he opened the door, Harry wondered who could cause Hagrid to step back in fear. Hagrid stepped aside and let two men into the cabin, the first was Dumbledore who nodded a greeting at Harry, the second man was someone Harry hadn't seen before.

Dumbledore stepped forward and said "Minister, may I introduce you to Harry Potter, Harry meet Cornelius Fudge, the current minister of magic"

"It's a pleasure to meet you sir" Harry said, wondering if Dumbledore had asked Harry to be there just to meet the minister

"Pleasure to meet you too Harry, but shouldn't you be in the castle at this time of night?" Fudge said warmly

"The rules say I don't need to be inside for another hour at least and I like talking to Hagrid, he's a good friend of mine."

"He's your friend? Oh… well this… changes things" Fudge said awkwardly, fidgeting with his bowler hat quite rapidly "You see, I had come here tonight to issue the arrest of Mr. Hagrid, people are being attacked and we… That is to say the ministry needs to be seen doing something."

"But why arrest Hagrid? We already know who's behind the attacks"

"You do? Who is it boy?" Fudge asked, sounding rather relieved

"It's Voldemort of course, he tried to attack me a few days ago and he was famous for calling himself 'the heir of Slytherin'"

"You-know-who? Preposterous, he's dead!" Fudge blustered

"Then perhaps it's someone trying to cash in on Voldemort's infamy then, but Harry wasn't lying when he said someone attacked him Monday morning, someone with access to extremely potent and dark magic." Dumbledore said smoothly, giving a pointed stare at Harry.

Before Fudge could respond there was yet another knock at the door, this time Lucius Malfoy strolled in. Harry couldn't help noticing that Lucius' clothes looked less cared for, possibly due to him losing his house elf over the Summer.

"Ah, Fudge, I hoped to catch you. You see, I have here a notice for the removal of Albus Dumbledore as headmaster, signed by all of the School Governors and the chairman Augusta Longbottom, effective immediately." Lucius said smugly

"yeh can' get rid o' Dumbledore, there'll be killings next" Hagrid bellowed

"If that is what the governors wish, I will of course step down. But you should know, I will never truly be gone for as long as people still believe in me. Before I leave, minister will you be arresting the Key Keeper or will I be able to leave knowing the Keys to Hogwarts are still in safe hands?"

"He will stay, but I'll be posting aurors at the school to watch over things, while you're gone." Fudge said softly, without another word Fudge fled the cabin with Lucius strolling after him.

* * *

_So first big things, Harry is strong enough to resist the temptation to write in the book but not strong enough to notice the temptation to not reveal the book, lessons with Lockhart have become more of 1 on 1 dueling where Lockhart is starting to out power Harry. _

_Tom Riddle's father was canonically Tom Riddle Sr whose own father was Thomas Riddle, so technically Voldemort is actually Tom Riddle the 3rd. For the sake of ease when I say Thomas Riddle I mean Voldemort's father._

_Harry's shield will sort of resemble Percy Jackson's shield just physically much smaller, the spear he's been carrying for a while is one of the spears he formed while attacking the troll, just modified to be more powerful. _

_Next chapter will be Harry entering the chamber and confronting Tom._

_I have also uploaded yet another story, Time Heist. Making liberal use of Time Turners to break into Gringotts during the events of the Deathly Hallows._


	41. Into the chamber

There was a noticeable difference once the students became aware of Dumbledore's forced departure, Harry hadn't thought the students could become any more scared, he was wrong.

Mcgonagall had set up temporary dormitories for the first and second years just off the great hall, this allowed the aurors on guard to watch over them throughout the day. There were only four aurors on duty at any one time, to Harry's delight Tonks was one of those aurors, he had tried to keep in contact with her through letters but Harry preferred talking to writing letters.

His plan was that if he could build up a good friendship with Tonks she would let him study her metamorphmagus power, but he found she was busy for most of the day and too tired by the evening to talk.

Another issue with the aurors presence was that he'd been unable to get back into his workshop for a while, part of the reason was because they had been told to stay in the great hall unless being escorted to lesson but he also didn't want to risk an auror discovering his workshop and breaking in.

However even with the added security it seemed it wasn't enough, just two weeks after Dumbledore's departure word spread through the hall of another attack, but this time the victim wasn't a student. Professor Lockhart had already been sent to the St Mungo's intensive care unit, it seemed his class had been attacked on their way to charms and he had held off the attacker long enough for most of the class to escape.

Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley were missing, the aurors were frantically searching the school for them and Harry promised himself, if they didn't find Luna by sundown he would escape the aurors and find her himself. Harry couldn't help but notice how everyone offered their sympathies to the Weasleys but none of them bothered to check on him, only Colin seemed to realise that he was suffering too.

As he had dreaded the two girls had still not been found by dinner, after applying a notice-not he shrugged off his school robe and pulled the hood of his Invisibility cloak over his head and strode out of the hall.

His first stop was his workshop where he retrieved his spear and prototype shield, it didn't have the mithril core put in yet which meant the shield would only take a couple hits before needing to regenerate.

Once he had everything he wanted he went to the moving staircase and sent his magical awareness out, he knew he wouldn't be powerful enough to search the entire castle for Lune so instead he looked for someone that could. Eventually his magic detected a ghost, he began drawing in his awareness from elsewhere and focusing entirely on the ghost.

When he felt he had a good enough hold on the ghost he began pulling it towards him, Harry winced when he saw the ghost was Sir Nicolas. He had gotten to know the ghost and he didn't think being pulled through the castle would impress the ghost.

"Who hath summoned me hither" Nicolas demanded angrily

"I'm sorry Sir Nick, but I needed to talk to you. You see two first years have been kidnapped, Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley, I had hoped that perhaps one of the ghosts had seen something."

"I have seen nothing… although Ms. Warren said she had seen two girls, she seemed to have recognised the book one of the girls was carrying." Nicolas said grimly, his anger apparently forgotten.

"Ms. Warren?"

"Myrtle Warren, she's been haunting that bathroom on the 2nd floor for the past 50 years."

"Thank you Sir Nick, you've been extremely helpful."

Harry took off towards Myrtle's bathroom, on the way he crashed into Ron Weasley which sent them both sprawling over the floor.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry asked angrily, unknowingly copying Nickolas from moments before.

"What the hell am I doing? What the hell are _you_ doing! I'm going to save my sister!" Ron said heatedly

"Well I'm going to save my friend and I'm not letting you stand in the way of saving another friend!"

"I'm… sorry, but Ginny's my sister, I'd gladly accept your help saving them both but I won't just sit on the sidelines and watch." Ron said definitely, Harry could see he wouldn't be convinced to stay away.

"Fine, but stay out of my way and keep anything you see me doing a secret… Get under the cloak." Harry regretted his decision to let Ron come along almost immediately as needed to move much slower, but he feared if he tried to go without Ron he would alert the aurors who would stop Harry for his own 'safety'.

Eventually he reached Myrtle's bathroom and was able to lift the Cloak off Ron

"Myrtle, are you here?" Harry called impatiently

"Oh, hello Harry." Myrtle giggled, floating out of her toilet

"Sir Nick said you saw two girls with a book, where did they go?"

"Well I remember recognising the book and then the red haired girl started speaking in a funny made up language, I think it was the same language the boy used when I died… anyway the sinks started moving out of the way to reveal this giant pipe that the two jumped down."

Harry went over to the sinks she had indicated and Looked, there was definitely some sort of magic going on behind the sinks but he didn't have time to break through the protections, instead he drew his saber and carefully cut a hole through the sinks.

When the blade had gone through the stone and marble the magic around the sinks had flashed brightly before finally collapsing, Ron looked amazed when Harry finally stepped away from the hole he had made.

"What the bloody hell was that?"

"Universal key, it's very useful when I need to get through difficult obstacles." Harry said absently, focusing on drawing the heat out of the stone. As he drained the heat he investigated the pipe so that he wouldn't be caught unaware by a trap.

"It may interest you to know that the hole is actually a portal, the only way to enter that pipe seems to be through this gap. If you were to dig down to the side and go across you would just pass right through, which makes sense considering there's a floor below us that clearly doesn't have a giant pipe passing through it."

With that Harry crawled through the hole and down into the pipe, when he saw the end of the pipe come into view he managed to get to his feet under him so that he came out of the pipe much slower and almost upright. The same couldn't be said for Ron who flew out of the pipe and rolled over the floor.

"Come on, onwards into the Chamber of secrets." Harry said jokingly, inwardly hoping Ron didn't see how scared he really was.

"How do you know it's the chamber of secrets?" Ron asked nervously, easily catching up with Harry's much shorter stride

"Well it makes sense doesn't it? This _is_ a secret chamber hidden under the school."

Harry felt Ron grab hold of his robes and pull him backwards, angrily he turned around but paused when he saw Ron pointing at something behind him, Harry looked and realised Ron was pointing at something large that Harry would have walked into in the dark.

"Relax… I think it's only the skin of a large snake…" Harry said slowly, having only seen a faint magical signature from the thing and upon closer inspection saw it was hollow. He quickly stood up and drew his wand when he realised the signature on the skin was the vivid green net that had petrified the heir's victims.

"This is the creature that attacked the students… but what snake that large can petrify its victims?" Harry said softly, not wanting to draw attention to their location

"I don't know, but I only know one type of snake that grows that big, my brother Charlie works with dragons and he once got called in to fight a basilisk, he said it was 12 feet long… but this must be at least 20 if not bigger." Ron said worriedly

Harry activated his shield and passed it to Ron "If you see anything move cover your eyes with this, it _should_ block you from anything that isn't unblockable."

"What about you?"

"Hopefully my magic is strong enough to stop the basilisk's magic… anyway I'm hoping my Cloak will protect me somewhat."

The two boys continued walking in silence, there was now a sense of danger as they realised they might not survive what was to come.

After what seemed an age they were met by a circular door with a snake motif, Harry quickly cut through the hinges and let the door roll away. Together they entered the main chamber, Ron let out a cry of panic and ran towards his sister's unmoving body, Harry quickly followed and checked on Luna who was lying next to Ginny.

He sighed in relief when he felt stable life signs from Luna, he Looked deeper and realised she had been petrified by the basilisk, he moved to Ginny and frowned when he had difficulty finding her signature. It was as if she had been drained dry, physically she seemed fine but she barely had any magic left.

"She won't wake" Harry turned and was momentarily confused, the boy that was standing in front of him was eerily similar to the disguise Dobby had made for him over the summer, the only main difference was the boy's hair being shorter.

"Who are you?" Harry asked cautiously, spotting the wand the boy was carelessly toying with, a wand that looked suspiciously like Ron's

"You may know me as Tom Riddle, had you bothered to talk to my diary perhaps you would have known this." The boy's accent was hard to place, he sounded like he was trying to emulate a news reporter from the world war two film Harry had been forced to watch.

"You're T.M Riddle? But you died, I saw your gravestone"

"Oh, so you know who I am? Yes I died, but you see I had taken steps to ensure my immortality. As you can see, they were quite successful."

"But where did you learn how to do this? I looked at the school records and nobody with your name attended Hogwarts in the 20s."

"In the 20s? What no, I went to Hogwarts 40s… the diary even has the date written on it…" Tom sounded genuinely confused, he even lowered the wand to stare at Harry.

"But your grave said you were born like 1905, are you not Thomas Matteo Riddle?"

Tom began chuckling madly "By merlin no, you found the grave of my filthy muggle father and you thought he was _me_? Oh that's hilarious, as if my father would ever have been worth one _tenth_ of me. See this is why I got rid of his filthy name, if I was to rule the world I needed a name better than just _Tom_."

"Who are you then?" Ron asked, looking away from his sister to glare at Riddle

Rather than answer, Tom started writing his name in the air, Harry recognised the spell as the one he had adapted for his mithril pen. Once Tom had finished writing his name he flicked Ron's wand and rearranged the name until it became "I am Lord Voldemort"

"Your you-know-who?" Ron scoffed

Harry started at Tom carefully, it was hard to miss how he was transparent and his body seemed to be made entirely of magic, specifically _Ginny's_ magic. But when he had written out his name the spell had been powered by Voldemort's distinctive dark red magic.

"Fortunately for you, I don't have the energy to fight you. So instead let us see who will win, Slytherin's monster or two second year boys." Tom turned from them and began shouting at the statue that dominated the far wall of the chamber "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!"

"What's he saying?" Ron asked quietly, Harry couldn't help wonder if the boy had trouble hearing and would have asked the boy if the mouth of the statue hadn't opened wide and the basilisk had slithered out.

"Ah crap, Ron try and distract it! I'll try and get it while it isn't looking!" His plan failed almost immediately when the snake turned towards him and stared directly at him before chasing after Ron.

Harry tried to avoid looking at its eyes but it was as if a compulsion charm was forcing him to look at them. He could faintly feel his Cloak flutter as if caught in a breeze and the hood of the Cloak slipped over his eyes, cutting the connection.

Ron saw Harry freeze when the basilisk looked at him and feared the boy had already died, trying to draw the snake's attention he yelled and ran into a side tunnel. He could hear the snake slithering after him and didn't dare look back in case he also fell victim to the snake's gaze.

While Ron ran from the basilisk Harry was fighting a different battle, the magic from the basilisk had wrapped around his own magic and was pressing down heavily, the basilisk's magic had quickly robbed him of any movement but his mind remained active.

The magic attacked Harry from all sides and he knew he couldn't keep it at bay for long with a single tendril of magic, he couldn't even feel his mithril or philosopher's stone to draw in more magic. He tried to form something out of mithril but he wasn't able to get his magic past the net to from any mithril on his skin, desperately he formed the mithril inside his brain while frantically thinking 'Do not kill me, please just let me split my magic, please don't kill me.'

He felt something build in his head, just like severe a headache. It started to fade just as quickly as it had formed, as it faded Harry became gaining better awareness of his magic. He became aware of how to split his magic and did so with barely a thought.

Now that he had several probes of magic at his disposal he attacked the basilisk's magic with new found ferocity. He was able to push the net further away and soon was able to draw upon his mithril, the influx of power from the mithril was enough to break the magic entirely. The force of the magic breaking sent Harry to his knees and knocked Tom across the chamber. Before either boy could recover Ron ran into the chamber closely followed by the basilisk, Harry quickly covered his eyes as he didn't want to go through petrification for a second time.

"Enough of this, I am the greatest sorcerer of all time! I will not be thrown around like a ragdoll" Tom yelled, sending a wave of magic that knocked Harry and Ron over, it also seemed to be a signal for the basilisk as it stopped chasing after them.

"You're wrong, you're not the greatest sorcerer" Ron said defiantly

"Oh, you think there's someone greater than myself?" Tom said humorously

"Well Dumbledore for one and I reckon Harry here knows more about magic than you ever will."

"Dumbledore? Dumbledore has been beaten by the mere _memory_ of me! As for _Potter_, well he may know some fancy tricks but what does he know of true magic?"

"Dumbledore will only truly be gone when there is nobody left who is loyal to him." Harry said softly, as soon as the words left his mouth a ball of fire appeared in the middle of the chamber and Fawkes flew out, holding what looked like an old hat.

"A hat? This is what Dumbledore sends his gallant defenders? The old sorting hat and a songbird? How… quaint." Tom said mockingly

Fawkes had finished his lap of the chamber and dropped the hat at Ron's feet before landing on Harry's shoulder and chirped happily. Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw Ron reach down and pick up the hat, for some reason the boy decided to put the hat on his head.

"Well now let's who's greater, the might of Slytherin or two children and a pet bird."

* * *

The battle passed in a blur for Harry, after giving the order to attack Riddle had disappeared and the basilisk had resumed trying to kill them. Fawkes had dived at the snake's eyes and had punctured one of its eyes before a curse from Riddle had struck the bird, as Fawkes fell the snake had launched forward and swallowed the bird in a single gulp.

Harry had tossed his spear to Ron to make up for his lack of wand and the two had instinctively gone to either side of the basilisk. Ron went to the side without an eye and would repeatedly throw the spear, each strike was pitifully small against the sheer size of the beast but the size of the snake also made it hard to miss.

For Harry it seemed like his mithril had not only gifted him the power to split his magic. Every so often he would get a _feeling_ from his mithril that would guide him, it didn't outright tell him what to do but it helped him make the right choice.

The hide of a basilisk was almost completely immune to all but the most powerful magicks, the scales naturally reflected magic and the latent power of the basilisk defused the spells that made it through the hide. This meant almost every spell Harry knew wouldn't even scratch the snake, limiting Harry to physical attacks such as a blade or elemental attacks.

He would fire a strong blasting curse at the ground in front of the snake sending bits of tile flying into the air, he would then direct the air to send the shards of tile towards the snake's face. While he assaulted the snake's face his mithril directed him to simultaneously attack the tail of the beast. With his gauntlet he directed a tendril of magic to launch a blade of sharpened air which managed to draw a drop of blood.

Once more the mithril directed him to summon the blood to him, sympathetic magic was one of the most primal arts and perhaps the most well known amongst the Arcane arts. The basic principle of sympathetic was about affecting something small so that it affected something much larger.

Before the times of formalised learning in the form of Hogwarts sympathetic magic was the most common magical art, this was because it's relative simplicity meant that a student didn't need to spend years perfecting it. Back when witches and wizards were feared time was not a luxury many could afford, so if a witch or wizard couldn't give off an image of power they would've been killed.

Known more commonly as Voodoo Magic the caster would imbue an object with the spirit of their victim, the connection between object and victim affected how power the magic was. A lock of hair on a human shaped doll had a strong connection, but blood remained the most powerful form of connection.

Harry had never attempted sympathetic magic before but with his mithril guiding the way he felt he couldn't go wrong. It occurred to him that just having the blood wouldn't be enough, otherwise even a paper cut could be fatal to a wizard. This meant some likeness to the victim needed to be built, to help himself mentally connect the giant serpent in front of him with the drop of blood in his hand.

As he thought he kept up a wave of low powered spells aimed at the beast's head, it was as if he was on autopilot and he instinctively formed the spells which left his wand. He summoned knives that flew at the snake's eye and dust that blinded it, when the basilisk had tried to get close to him he had fired a blasting curse into its mouth.

With his gauntlet he transfigured some nearby rubble into a small model of a snake and then smeared the blood over the model's back. His magic then directed him to push a layer of magic over the model with the intent to bind, he followed obediently and was fascinated to see the blood be absorbed into the stone.

The snake in his hand seemed to warm and Harry would swear he saw it move, he tried to think of a way to stop the basilisk with the object but was interrupted by a spell flying towards him, he threw himself to the side but in the process dropped the statue. Harry turned and glared at Tom Riddle who now held both Ron's wand and Harry's statue.

"Tut tut, such dark magic Harry, I didn't know you had it in you. Unfortunately I can't have you killing the basilisk, not when she's so very close to finishing your friend." Tom then started firing a barrage of curses at Harry, forcing his focus away from the basilisk.

It was all Harry could do to withstand the curses, some he could block or deflect but most he needed to dodge. Each of Tom's spells weren't nearly as powerful as they had been the year before but despite this each and every one of Tom's spells had the potential to end him.

He tried throwing back his own curses at Tom but no matter what he threw at him, Tom just blocked or deflected his magic like it was nothing. It was fortunate Harry had learned to not rely on shields through his lessons with Lockhart since anytime he raised a shield it was almost immediately shattered.

Harry waited until Ron had thrown the spear before calling it to him, he didn't want to leave Ron without a weapon but Tom was by far the most dangerous thing in the room.

When his spear arrived he used it to absorb the more lethal spells, imbuing their power into the spear. This gave him enough breathing room to start his own barrage, throwing Tom off his own casting. He waited for the perfect moment and shot two powerful blasting curses either side of Tom then threw his spear straight at him.

Tom saw the spear coming and tried to jump out of the way only to have Harry's blasting curse hit him squarely in the chest, once more throwing him across the chamber. Harry quickly turned back to the basilisk and was amazed to see Ron had somehow found a sword, the boy would leap forward and take a wild slash at the snake. The sword must have been made of mithril as it left a long, deep gash in its hide.

Harry summoned the sympathetic statue from Riddle and smashed it against the floor, the basilisk let out a deep cry of pain before turning to Harry and moving towards him quicker than he could react.

The snake seemed determined to kill him before she died. Harry threw his hands up desperately in an attempt to stop the snake's strike, only to have one of the fangs perfectly strike his gauntlet. The moment the mithril touched the fang it started to burn and Harry was alarmed to feel the fang piece his palm through the mithril.

It felt as if the fang had gone right through his hand and had struck the Philosopher's Stone on the other side when the Stone began to glow brightly and the pain faded. The red fire like magic of the Stone spread up into the fang like a vein, the fang seemed to grow smaller and was pulled down into the Stone until nothing remained.

The sound of clapping made Harry turn, Tom Riddle stood at the other end of the chamber, his robes were caked in dust and his face was heavily bruised but still he grinned as if he had won, Ron's wand lay shattered behind him.

"You may have killed the beast but it matters not, for I have won anyway. While you were busy fighting I was draining the last of poor Geneva's magic and soul, which means I am now flesh and blood and no longer bound to that book. I would love to stay longer but this chamber is about to collapse and I have a country to rule."

* * *

When the chamber started to shake violently and dust fell from the ceiling, Ron acted on instinct and ran over to his sister, she was still unmoving but he didn't want her body to be buried in the chamber.

He carefully picked up Ginny and threw her over his shoulder before helping the other girl to her feet, whatever spell had been keeping her unconscious seemed to have broken and she was looking around the chamber dazedly.

"Harry! We have to go, this whole thing sounds like it's going to fall any minute now!" Ron shouted desperately

"Take Luna and go, I'll be right behind you!" Harry looked at Ron seriously before flicking his eyes towards the exit and then waving his wand around in a complicated pattern

Against his better judgement Ron handed Luna the shield before taking her hand and leading her out of the chamber, the sorting hat was clutched in one hand and the sword of Gryffindor in the other. He still didn't know what possessed him to ask the hat for help but it had been the right call as the hat had answered his plea and gifted him the fabled sword of his house's founder.

Halfway down the rocky tunnel whatever was lighting up the cave began to fade, he feared they would have to go the rest of the way in darkness but the sword and shield had started to glow dimly, the sword with a soft and warm red while the shield was a cool green.

The light was enough to illuminate their way and soon they arrived at the pipe, Ron cursed loudly as in the heat of the moment he had forgotten about it. He threw the sword at a wall in anger and defeat but hope soon filled him when rather than just bounce off the wall the sword sunk deep into the stone.

He retrieved the sword and then turned to Luna "Get on my back and hold on tight, make sure Ginny doesn't fall off." He crouched as Luna climbed on then walked up the pipe until his feet started to slide backwards, he then thrust the sword into the stone and pulled himself upwards.

He then willed his magic into his hand and tried to imagine his hand was now sticky, he hadn't forgotten what Harry had taught him over a year ago but had never managed to get his magic to work wandlessly without Harry's help. He could only hope that his desperation would help his attempts this time.

The sound of the chamber crumpling had faded somewhat but he could still hear it faintly, fueling his panic and giving him a sense of urgency.

He slapped his hand against the smooth stone and cautiously pulled the sword out of the stone. His hand flared in pain as his entire weight plus two girls was held up by it and Ron quickly thrust the sword back into the stone a few feet higher.

'I must reach the top' Ron thought as he repeated the process for what felt like the hundredth time, by now every one of his muscles was screaming but he didn't dare stop for even a moment. After what seemed like an age, light started to fill the pipe as he reached the exit, wordlessly Luna crawled off his back and through the hole Harry had made.

Once she was through, she turned and helped pull Ginny out, she then reached out to help Ron through but he didn't move. He looked down the dark pipe and thought about Harry.

He had let the boy down before and he was determined to make up for that mistake, he was just about to let himself fall down the pipe when he was grabbed by something and pulled him through the hole.

"Harry's down there isn't he?"

* * *

Harry awoke slowly, he looked around and saw he was once more in the hospital wing.

"Ah Harry, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you awake." Dumbledore said warmly

"Headmaster? What happened, where did Tom go? Did Ron get out okay?"

"I do not know where Tom went, from Mr. Weasley's account it sounds like he vanished into thin air. As for your friends, Mr. Weasley managed to get all three of them out of the chamber. It may interest you to know he was about to go back for you once he had gotten Miss Lovegood and Weasley to safety.

"As it is I managed to stop Mr. Weasley and went after you myself, I found you unconscious at the feet of a great pillar that seemed to be holding the chamber up."

"I didn't think we would've had enough time to get out before the chamber fell so I tried to stop it collapsing… Professor what about Fawkes? He was swallowed by the basilisk!"

"Fear not my boy, Fawkes was able to flame to me just before he died, it was he who warned me something was wrong at Hogwarts. When I arrived the aurors informed me that four students were missing and so I asked the ghosts and portraits for help, it was they who directed me towards the second floor bathroom."

"Was Tom Riddle really Voldemort?"

Dumbledore sighed sadly and his jovial mood faded

"Yes, I believe so. I have long suspected Tom became Voldemort but before last night I lacked any firm evidence."

"Then he's back isn't he? Voldemort has come back."

"Yes… Lord Voldemort has returned to the realm of the living, I fear dark times are ahead of us Harry…"

* * *

**_For those counting, this is the end of 'Part two'. Take this time to get up, stretch your legs and get a snack._**

_As Dumbledore never actually said "I will never truly be gone for as long as people are loyal to me" in Hagrid's hut in this story, Harry basically came up with it by himself, taking inspiration from what Dumbledore has said in the past to Harry._


	42. Aftermath

It turned out the basilisk fang had in fact pierced his hand, when he had tried to deactivate his gauntlet the first thing he noticed was the hole that now decorated his hand. The second thing he noticed was the almost blinding pain that started from his hand and started creeping down his arm.

The gauntlet flowed back over his hand instinctively, the last thing Harry saw was how green his veins had become before the mithril covered it completely. Previously his gauntlet stopped at his wrist but now it went down almost two inches down his forearm.

"You say you were pierced by a basilisk fang? I must say I never tested my Stone on basilisk venom but I suspect that while the stone remains in contact with the venom it should neutralise the venom… Our best bet maybe to wait until Albus' phoenix grows up as phoenix tears are one of the few things powerful enough to counter basilisk venom permanently." Nicolas had said when he had looked at Harry's hand.

A Basilisk was one of the few magical creatures that had the power to break through magic, this was because their venom was magically poisonous which meant that when it came into direct contact with anything magical it would dissolve the magic.

Dragons and dementors were also supposed to have similar abilities, there were also spells which had the same power, like fiendfyre which was based on dragon fire. As his mithril was made entirely of magic in their current state corrosive magic would go right through them.

* * *

"Dobby?" Harry asked quietly, he was alone in his workshop but Harry felt uncomfortable breaking the silence of the night.

"Master Harry sir?" Dobby apparated into the room with barely a whisper, Harry was stunned at the change in Dobby, the first noticeable difference was his voice. Gone was the small squeaky voice, now Dobby's voice was much deeper and more confident.

Physically Dobby was now almost as tall as Harry, he also appeared to have gained some muscles from what Harry could see under his shirt. That was another change, he was now dressed in a large faded Weird Sisters shirt and jeans.

"Hello Dobby… you're looking… well." Harry said hesitantly, wary of the change in the elf

"Me is being well Harry Potter Sir, I is talking with other elves and trying to find family." Dobby said sadly, his ears drooping

"Family?" Harry asked curiously

"Dobby lost his family the day he started working for the bad masters"

"And how long ago was that?"

"Dobby started working some time before Master Lucius' father was born"

"That would've been like 70 years ago right?" Harry said gobsmacked

Dobby shrugged and simply said "Elves lives are being longer than wizards"

"Okay… anyway I wanted to tell you that we figured out what the danger was, it was a basilisk being controlled by a memory of Voldemort… I managed to kill the basilisk but the memory escaped."

"He Who Must Not Be Named is back?" Dobby asked, his lip quivering

"We think so"

Dobby nodded seriously and then snapped his fingers and disapparated

"Well that went well" Harry muttered

* * *

Luckily for Harry phoenix's grew up quickly and the tears were ready before the week had ended, it would've been hard to hide his gauntlet from the other students but Dumbledore had allowed Harry to stay in his workshop for the week and if Luna thought it was strange Harry was wearing a metal glove she didn't say.

He had needed to deactivate the gauntlet to allow Fawkes to cry into the wound, it took all of Harry's willpower to keep the gauntlet deactivated in a few moments between the pain returning and the tears healing him.

The veins on his left hand still had a faint green tint and his palm had a scar over where the hole had been, but Harry didn't complain as another scar was better than a hole straight through his hand. A part of him also thought it was kind of cool that if anyone asked about the scar he could honestly claim it was from a dangerous magical creature.

After Fawkes had healed his hand Dumbledore had retrieved a sword, Harry noted it seemed to be the same sword Ron had used in the chamber.

"Do you know what this is Harry?"

"No professor, I only know Ron somehow got it in the Chamber."

"Well this is the sword of Godric Gryffindor, there are many rumours surrounding it and it was thought to have been lost to time. But when I was examining the sword I realised it was made from mithril and I wondered if you would like to take your own look at the sword… so long as you tell me what you find of course." Dumbledore said eagerly

"Sure" Harry looked over the sword and noted the gems that seemed to have been fused with the blade, but unlike the philosopher's Stone on his gauntlet there was a definite line of where the gem stopped and the blade began. When he Looked with his mage sight the blade was made of a dull red colour while the hilt was a softer orange.

The gems that were inlaid in the hilt were the same red as the blade and Harry wondered if the gems where a form of crystalised mithril, the ideologies on the hilt were much more extravagant than any ideology Harry had made and the simplest of them seemed to be comprised of several words.

The ideologies were also woven into the metal in a delicate and intricate pattern that was much harder to read compared to his own simplistic way of laying the ideologies on top of the mithril. The blade was easier to read and was mostly about always staying sharp and unbreakable, the most important part was woven into the core of the blade and established how anything that anything dangerous that touched the blade would be unraveled and written into the gems.

When Harry looked at the gems the only ideologies written in the creators magic was a single line telling the gems that anything that is received from the blade will be written as an ideology to enhance the blade. Already the gems were filled with various magic both light and dark.

Harry compared the gems to his gauntlet, where Voldemort's magic had been imbued into the gauntlet it had just been applied like an enchantment and anyone would have been able to unravel it just like any other enchantment. It was only after the Stone and mithril had been told by Harry to protect itself from being stolen that they had taken the idea of the curse and loosely added it into the protection, making it much harder to unravel.

With the basilisk venom the mithril had absorbed part of that venom and also imbued it into itself under the protection ideology but unlike the gems in the sword the venom and curse were foreign elements and would eventually decay. Because the sword's gems made any foreign element a part of itself they would never decay.

Harry began planning how he would implement some of the sword's ideologies into his shield as taking in something like fiendfyre didn't just give the sword the effect of fiendfyre, it made it completely immune to the fire. 'Just like a vaccine for mithril' Harry thought giddily

"I also have a small task for you should you want it, I feel it might be a good learning experience for you to try and replicate the sword. If you can make a perfect replica of the sword then we could see about returning the real sword to the goblins without losing a large part of Hogwarts history."

* * *

On his way back from the office Harry was stopped by someone he hadn't see for a long time

"Why it's potty wee Potter" Peeves crackled

"Oh hello Peeves" Harry said politely, he had always tried to be polite to Peeves ever since Penolope had told him of the pranks Peeves sometimes pulled on unsuspecting students

"I've heard many a story about you Potter, oh yes many a story" Peeves cackled

"Have you now?" Harry asked blandly

"Oh yes, _he's_ been _very_ interested in you." At this Peeves grin become more malicious

"He? Are you working for Voldemort Peeves?" Harry asked warily

Peeves laughed loudly and even started flying around erratically "Oh no Potty, I serve someone _much _stronger than Riddle. See you've been marked as a person of interest, which means I can't directly test you and find out if you are worthy of my Lord's interest…" Peeves seemed greatly disappointed at this "Of course I _can_ test people around you, like that Looney girl for example… Unless you do a thing or too for little Peevsie?"

Harry easily caught the threat and before he could even think his gauntlet had snapped into place and he had magically pulled Peeves towards him and wrapped his gauntleted fingers around Peeves' throat "You will leave her alone! Do you hear me Peeves? If you so much as lay a finger on her your master will need to find a new servant."

Peeves pulled uselessly against Harry's hand and even tried to go immaterial, but as Peeves was made purely of magic and the Gauntlet was an entirely magical construct Peeves couldn't phase through it. Finally having realised he couldn't escape Peeves shot Harry a hateful glare and muttered "Fine, I will leave her alone, but watch your back Potter, you've made an enemy of Peeves!"

Disgusted Harry flung Peeves aside and glared at the pultegist before turning and going back to his workshop, his first project would be to coat the walls of his workshop in mithril so Peeves couldn't break in.

* * *

_Much shorter chapter today, I am planning on skipping the chapter next week to focus on other things (Such as a possible next chapter in Time Heist)_

_With the mithril the Goblins have had centuries to perfect their craft while Harry has only had two years, as such their mithril objects like the sword are way more advanced. _

_I was planning on having Harry be unable to read the sword's ideologies as they would have been formed in Gobbledegook but then I figured it would make more sense if mithril ideologies were written in pure magic and Harry just naturally translates it to english or at least something he can understand._

_Now it was brought up in a guest review that I was making Draco 'like a caricature of a villain' which to be honest I was, but at the same time Malfoy Sr also acts somewhat like a proper villain so it could follow that he acts more extreme at home, Draco wants to become his father so acts like how he's seen his father acts but he doesn't have any of the power or subtly of his father so rather than be a fearsome villain he's just like a pantomime or joke villain._

_With Dobby and Peeves this is one of my first attempts to expand Harry's sights to something beyond Hogwarts, have fun guessing who Peeves' master is!_

_Sidenote: My PC decided to crash right before I could copy the story over here so if theres more mistakes than normal please forgive me_


	43. Going Home

Albus strolled down the second floor corridor casually, he had once again asked Hogwarts to find Harry Potter and the castle had responded instantly. Few knew that Hogwarts tracked everyone on the official register, this included everyone from students to teachers. It wasn't as if it was a huge secret but few had ever read Hogwarts: A history.

What was curious was twice now Albus had asked Hogwarts to find Harry and both times the answer had been instantaneous. If he had asked Hogwarts to find a teacher it would've taken a matter of seconds, finding a prefect would take a bit longer. If it had been another student Hogwarts normally took several minutes to find them.

Putting the mystery to the back of his mind Albus carefully opened the door to the second floor bathroom and looked inside, as he expected Harry was kneeling on the floor by the entrance to the chamber of secrets. He noted how the boy's eyes were glowing slightly, a recent development which seemed to happen whenever the boy used his mage sight.

In order to not disturb him Albus gingerly sat down next to Harry, after he had cleared away the dust and debris. He couldn't help the pang of grief when he saw how serious Harry had become, it was far too easy for him to forget Harry was only twelve years old.

Internally Albus wondered just how far Harry had gone since he had first met him almost two years ago, by all accounts the boy had grown remarkably. His teachers regularly praised his achievements in class, even Nicolas was impressed by how fast the boy had learned the basics of Alchemy.

"Oh, headmaster, I didn't see you there"

Albus chuckled lightly and said "No matter, I often find myself lost in thought often. Tell me, what did you find out?"

"Well it confirmed my theory that my saber can cut through almost anything, you remember when I told you how the pipe is actually a portal? I reckon this portal moves or at least has multiple openings… Anyway from what I can tell the wards that protect this opening are meant to cut the connection if it is forcibly opened…" Harry trailed off, waving awkwardly towards the opening

"And yet when you forced entry with your wonderful saber the magic failed to activate?" Albus prompted

"Exactly! From what I can tell from what's left of the wards there used to be a conditional ward that triggers this disconnection which can only activate when the perimeter is broken, when the entrance opens it deactivates the ward… well my saber basically deactivates the ward as far as it was aware the entrance had been opened properly."

"So did you learn anything about the wards while you did this?" Albus had already spent significant time examining the remains of the wards the night after Harry had left the chamber. He had thoroughly searched the chamber and had placed a compulsion over the bathroom so people wouldn't think to enter.

"Well for starters even the strongest ward can be broken by my saber… or at least the strongest _normal_ ward, the mithril ward just shrugs off the saber like it's nothing. It also… tells me I shouldn't depend on just wards when I need to hide something?"

Albus considered Harry's conclusion, he had been wanted Harry to understand the second point by himself. Nodding encouragingly he said "Precisely, although this isn't limited to _just_ wards. In my experience relying on just a single branch of magic - no matter how powerful that branch may be - will always leave you open to defeat."

Rather than reply Harry activated his gauntlet and handed it to Dumbledore, it was the first time he had gotten a good look at it and he took the time to look it over. Albus was slightly concerned about the amount of magic that was bleeding off the gauntlet and there was a sense of mistrust from it, Albus knew that if he tried to put the gauntlet on the best case scenario would be that he lost his hand.

But he remembered the gauntlet had been a smooth silver the last time he had seen it with a bright red pattern that had looked like veins, now however the silver had become a faint but vivid green and the metal felt rough

when he touched it. When Albus looked closer he saw small lines of dull red around the extremes of the gauntlet that seemed to subtly flicker like a flame.

"I assume this discolouration is due to the basilisk venom?"

"Yeah, when I turned it into its ring form I saw the band of the ring had gone green so I activated it and it looked like that. I've checked it and as far as I can tell it's fine although I wouldn't go tasting it."

Albus went back to examining the gauntlet and marveled at its design, unlike a traditional gauntlet there were no gaps for movement. It was just made up of one continuous piece of mithril much like a glove, yet despite this it moved easily and freely.

"I must admit I have never seen another like it, to the best of my knowledge even the goblins have never made anything as strong as this gauntlet."

"That's probably due to the fact the goblins never had access to a philosopher's stone, most of the gauntlet was made by the Stone not me. When I made it I only covered my hand in mithril."

"Perhaps… But just because you didn't make it doesn't take away from its strength and who knows, maybe in the future you will be strong enough to make something even stronger."

Harry scoffed as if he disagreed but Albus had no doubt that in a few short years Harry would be capable of feats beyond his own imagination.

"Well we shall see with time, now I didn't just come here to chat. I wanted to know what your plans over the summer are, my home is always open to you and with Tom out there I would prefer you to be somewhere I can keep track of you. Tom cannot afford to make a public appearance but he wouldn't think twice about attacking you if he could get away with it."

"Well Luna invited me to join them hunt for mythical creatures later in the summer and I thought I would go… other than that I guess I was planning on just winging it I guess, although I wouldn't mind staying at your house."

"If I recall correctly I still owe you a visit to the University of Transfiguration and I have been asked to hold a lecture the first week of summer, if you wanted you could join me and we'll have a tour of the university after the talk."

"That would be great!" Harry said excitedly, Albus was pleased to note the boy had a gleam to his eye that was sadly missing most of the time.

* * *

Harry looked at his shield critically, despite the fact the shield hadn't even been used against Voldemort it looked damaged. It turned out that while mithril was almost completely indestructible it anything made of mithril could still be deformed.

Of course the density of an object also affected how easy it was to damage it, his mithril table could probably survive several hits from a hammer while something thin or hollow like his shield and the mithril ward casing could be dented in just a few hits.

From what Ron had said the large dent across the width of the shield is where the tail of the basilisk had swung round and bashed into it, the shield had completely absorbed the blow. Harry suspected that as the force from the basilisk's tail was just kinetic energy and the mithril was made of pure magical energy the shield was able to convert the kinetic energy into magical energy.

If that were true then Harry could potentially harness other forms of energy, meaning the shield wouldn't just resist elemental attacks like fire it could use the energy from the fire to power itself. It was a form of alchemy although he would need Nicolas to help with it.

Harry had learned that the main reason barely anybody bothered to learn alchemy wasn't because the actual art was hard, at its most basic it was just using the laws of equivalence to transmute an element into another element. It gets harder when you try to transmute multiple elements at once or use a transmuted element to make an elixir but it wasn't harder than NEWT level transfiguration.

The difficulty came from the fact that it took a lifetime to learn and memorise the laws of equivalence, that was unless you had a teacher that had already memorised everything and was able to pass on that information freely without needing to travel the world and test every reaction.

Nicolas had been almost 100 years old when he had finished the Philosopher's Stone, it had taken Nicolas' own master a lifetime to figure out the laws of equivalence. From what Nicolas had said his master, Ortolanus Lortholain, had developed a unit of measurement he called a 'Conpar'.

Ortolanus had started by giving 1kg of rocksalt a conpar of one, then worked out how much it took to transmute salt into the desired element. For example to get 1kg of nickel you needed 2kg of rocksalt, giving it a conpar of two. Once he had a system in place it was just a matter of getting a hold of enough materials to test everything.

But rocksalt doesn't just change into nickel on its own, there needs to be a form of energy to transmute the materials. In the muggle world extreme heat was often used such as in stars where materials are constantly broken down and reformed, luckily for wizards they had magic.

The difference between the desired material and the working material affected how much magic was needed to transmute said material. If you had a large enough power source, such as a philosopher's stone, then you could transmute nearly anything. This included the air itself which was why the stone got so famous, almost any alchemist could turn lead into gold at the cost of a lot of magic, but nobody could just make a gold bar appear out of thin air.

But there was much more to alchemy than just making gold, alchemy could also work with energy stores including magic. This was one of the reasons Dumbledore had been able to just wade through battle was because he didn't need to use his own magical supply. Harry suspected dementors worked in a similar way by drawing on nearby thermal energy, it would explain why dementors seemed to make everything cold.

If he could get his shield to draw from nearby energy sources then the magical protections could be much more powerful. The first thing Harry needed to do was make a mithril core for the shield and add some strength ideologies, he also wanted to ensure that any kinetic energy that struck the front of the shield would be absorbed.

He also needed to find a way to burn off excess energy, he couldn't use heat or light as both would make it harder for him to defend himself. Ideally he would send the magic somewhere but that just moved the problem, for the moment he would just push the magic into the magical shields.

The next issue was he needed a way to call the shield to him, he had been able to summon the javelin because he could trick the return to sender ideology to see him as the sender rather than Ron. As a temporary measure he made a sleeve of mithril form inside his arm and made it undetectable and adaptable, this would hopefully mean it wouldn't limit movement in his arm.

He then linked the sleeve to his shield and told the sleeve to summon the shield when it received a pulse of magic, with that done he started improving the shield. He was going to put the mithril core in the centre of the shield, in theory this would be the strongest part of the shield and would ensure the magic would cover everything.

* * *

For those affected by the basilisk the end of term exams had been canceled but for everyone else it was business as normal. Harry noticed the exams were much harder than the year before and figured that next year he would need to pay more attention in class, they had now covered almost everything he had taught himself and were moving into new territory.

He had picked divination, arithmancy and ancient runes for his electives, he already knew the basis of arithmancy and runes as Bathsheda had needed to teach him them to get the mithril ward to work. For divination he was curious to learn how witches and wizards determined the future with magic, from what he had read on the subject divination was also included finding out about current events with scrying which looked useful.

Lockhart had still not returned from Saint Mungo's and as there had only been three weeks till the end of term Dumbledore had taken over the class till the exams, in private Dumbledore had told Harry what had happened.

"Did you never wonder why Tom took both Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood? It is my belief he needed Miss Weasley's magic to make a body and then was going to use the other students' lifeforce to enhance his power. Gilderoy managed to hold off Tom long enough for the students to flee, only Miss Lovegood stayed behind."

"I didn't take Lockhart as the type of person to sacrifice himself for someone else."

"Perhaps at the beginning of the year he would've ran but he has grown since he was first employed, helped in no small part by yourself."

* * *

The ride from Hogwarts seemed to pass quicker than it had the year before, this year he had Luna to talk to and Colin had visited a few times over the journey. Once they had arrived at London Harry had gone with Luna and Xenophilius to their home where Dumbledore would pick him up once he had finished at Hogwarts.

While they waited for Dumbledore Xeno filled them in on what they had missed while at Hogwarts, of course being Xeno he told them of his search for the Crumple-horned Snorkack and the resurrection stone.

When Dumbledore arrived they were invited to have dinner with the Lovegoods, it was the first time Harry had felt like he was part of a family. It gave him hope that while things looked bleak they could always get better.

* * *

_As many of you seemed shocked I made Lockhart a good teacher I was thinking about making divination a useful subject… _

_The alchemy in this chapter is loosely borrowed from 'Nobody told me the rules' by Zaxaramas and 'The mind arts' by Wu Gang. _

_The shield is probably going to end up a mix of Percy Jackson's and Captain America's shields and as for the gauntlet I realised I've changed how it looks a few times now... the way I see it is a long glove that is made of metal with a fist sized gem on the back of the hand. As for what hand the gauntlet is actually on... When Harry made the gauntlet he made it to pick up the Stone which would imply right hand as he's right handed, but he also uses the gauntlet and wand and would want his wand in the right hand and gauntlet in the left, then against the basilisk he used his left hand to stop the fang. _

_My answer is he either swaps the gauntlet depending on the situation or it moves of its own accord without Harry really noticing. _


	44. Meeting Slughorn

"I wonder Harry, if you might join me on a trip to find an old friend? You see he was Tom Riddle's head of year and knowing Tom he would seek out Horace, as such I feel obliged to seek out and offer Horace protection personally." Dumbledore had found Harry reading in his library. Harry had been back at Dumbledore's for a few days now and had started devouring books.

"Sure, I wasn't planning on doing anything today"

They had first gone to a stately home in the woods, the wards around the home were impressive. Not as good as Hogwarts wards but Harry estimated they were even better than Dumbledore's. Next to the house but still inside the wards was an equally impressive garden that was filled with magical plants of all variety.

"If you would follow behind me, I do not believe Horace is home and it would do to keep an air of caution." Dumbledore said solemnly

Dumbledore waved his wand and opened a hole in the ward that allowed Harry to step through, Harry looked at Dumbledore questioningly as he didn't know of any magic that would allow someone to change the wards of someone else.

"As I helped set up these wards I can grant entry, it's a well known issue when hiring ward makers… I believe your mithril wards will also have a similar issue where as the mithril is made from your magic any ward made by them will obey you above all else."

When they reached the home Dumbledore knocked sharply and they waited, after a few moments had passed Dumbledore knocked again. When the door still didn't open Dumbledore drew his wand and waved it in a slow arch over his head, Harry felt the wave of magic that passed over him.

"It appears he's not in"

"Should we come back another day?"

"Perhaps although I suspect it would do us no good, if I am correct Horace has already received a visitor. If you wouldn't mind unlocking the door… Preferably without breaking anything."

Harry wasn't convinced it would be a good idea to break into somebody's house even if they were a friend Dumbledore "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Harry asked nervously

"A man's life may be in danger Harry, suffice it to say that if any trouble does come our way I will make it clear you were only acting under my orders."

Shrugging Harry accepted the answer and held his arm near the door, he had recently added the mithril key he had made at the Malfoys into the mithril sleeve. When he added the key he had discovered something curious, when he maintained physical contact with his mithril he could change the ideologies of the mithril easily.

He suspected this was how the gauntlet had originally accepted the Stone, he had wanted to pick up the Stone and make it impossible for Voldemort to get it, the mithril had therefore taken the Stone and combined it with itself making it so only Harry could use it. If he wasn't touching the mithril then he was limited in how he could affect it.

But the mithril he had put inside himself acted differently, for starters it didn't act like a solid and it seemed his subconscious was capable of modifying it instantly. The liquid mithril in his arm not only summoned and activated his shield, it could also summon any type of magical shield he could imagine and with some thought could unlock almost any lock.

His dreams had also been affected, before he had put the mithril in his head he would forget his dreams when he woke up. But now he was aware of his dreams, he guessed it was like being a lucid dreamer except this seemed so much stronger. Now his dreams saw him standing on the sideline as he watched two great forces fight, it was impossible to tell anything about them but Harry could tell the result of the battle would be cataclysmic.

The mithril quickly unlocked Horace's door and together he and Dumbledore entered, it didn't look like he had been attacked and a quick look at his bedroom revealed his clothes missing.

"Perhaps you might be able to shed some light on where Horace might have gone Harry?"

"Err… okay? So you said he was Tom's teacher right? Well Tom wouldn't just go after any teacher which suggests he could've been his head of year? Well Tom was a Slytherin so Horace must've been a Slytherin too. If I had taught Voldemort and suspected he was back I would hide, but I would also want to keep up to date with the news. Maybe a disguise?"

"Excellent deduction, yes Horace was a Slytherin and he liked to help promising students, he prefers to lay in the background you see. So when his students rose to succeed they would remember the teacher that gave them that boost."

"I'm assuming by the plants outside he was either a Herbology or Potions teacher… and I suspect a young Voldemort would've been more interested in the potions teacher. He would need to have some form of income so he would need access to potion ingredients, it would be too obvious to come back here for the plants and the only other place I can think of that might have those types of plants would be the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts."

"Marvelous, well fortunately for us I happen to have a portkey destined for the forest that leaves any moment now, shall we?"

They arrived in a large clearing and Harry could feel the wards around them that would ensure any dangerous creature would stay clear

"Did you plan this entire thing?" Harry asked dryly

"I wasn't about to bring you into a potentially dangerous environment without checking it out first, but this is as far as I got before the trail went cold."

Harry Looked around but all he was able to see was magic with a hidden signature, as they were near Hogwarts wards his mage sight was dulled. But despite the fact his sight was only at half its power he was capable of scraping away the outermost layer of the magic to reveal Dumbledore's unique magic.

"Horace's magic… it wouldn't happen to have a dark purple aura would he?" Harry had stripped away a residual spiral of magic and had unearthed dark purple instead of Albus' indigo. "I assume you tracked his apparition here but was unable to track him further?"

"Correct, I determined he had not traveled further and wasn't followed. It was then that I realised I would need to take the risk and escort you into uncharted territory, however I do feel confident in saying you will not be in any danger."

Harry Looked at the apparition point carefully and tried to memorise the exact colour of the magic, once he knew what to look for he began scanning the forest floor. It seemed Horace had applied a low level silencing charm on his feet, Harry followed the trail and just hoped Dumbledore would ensure they wouldn't run into any dangerous creature.

The footsteps lead out of the forest and into Hogsmeade but before Harry could leave the forest Dumbledore stuck out his arm "Perhaps disguises of our own? I fear Horace may try and run if he sees me and the attention you will bring will make it harder to follow the trail."

"Oh… yeah that's not a bad idea." Dumbledore was about to apply a disguise to Harry when the boy activated his gauntlet, assuming Harry had his own disguise sorted Dumbledore began transfiguring himself to look a few decades younger and changed his hair from its original dark brown to black. Few would recognise him as he had turned himself into a mix of Gellert and Harry, two people he could picture easily.

When he turned back to Harry he recognised it as the same disguise Harry had used over the summer, the only difference is he now had a pale green glove where the gauntlet had been. "You can apply disguises with your mithril?"

"Sort of, it drains the mithril so it needs a power source, which is why I'm using the gauntlet. If I return it to its ring form I'm fairly sure my disguise will run out. At Malfoy manor I was able to mimic Tonks' metamorph powers by having my mithril send out a short burst of magic rather than a continuous stream… But that was only my hand, I don't want to test that with my whole body."

"Perhaps I could arrange a meeting with Ms. Tonks? As you know I don't want you to be at risk but I want you to have your freedom, an auror guard would be enough to make Tom think twice."

Dumbledore had no doubt that if Harry put his mind to it he would become the first person to become a metamorphmagus without being born one.

Now with their disguises in place they continued their journey, once they entered the village the magic became harder to track and Harry could only guess where they had gone "I believe he entered that pub, but I can't tell if he stayed there."

The pub in question was the Hogs Head, Dumbledore took the lead and led Harry inside, Harry looked around the pub in interest and was caught off guard when he saw the bar keeper. It was as if he was looking at a Dumbledore that had gone wild and didn't care for his appearance, Harry wondered if this was Albus' brother Aberforth.

The man glared at Albus but didn't say anything, Harry then started Looking at the patrons of the pub and zeroed in on the lone figure at the back, like almost everyone in the pub he had a large hood obscuring his face but Harry easily see through the cloaks obscuring magic and saw Horace's signature.

Harry tugged at Dumbledore's arm and led him over to the man, they both sat opposite the man and Albus threw a silencing ward over the table so nobody could overhear them. Harry then formed a ball of mithril that he made give off a strong notice-not and placed it in the middle of the table.

As they were outside of the rich magic of Hogwarts the mithril would use up magic slightly quicker than it could replenish but Harry figured it would last at least two hours.

"Good afternoon Horace, I must say I am disappointed in how easy it was to find you."

"You shouldn't have been able to find me, I guess Aberforth told you of my arrival? I didn't think he would sell me out like that" Horace said grumpily

"Oh Aberforth didn't tell me anything, may I introduce you to Harry Potter?" Albus said cheerfully

Horace's eyes snapped to Harry and Harry let his disguise fall, he trusted the notice-not to keep his identity secret.

"So the rumours are true? The boy-who-lived has the sight of the gods" Horace said, a mix of awe and satisfaction in his voice

"Sight of the gods?" Harry asked nervously

"It's the popular term for mage sight, it's said that people can only see magic in its pure form when they have been blessed by a god." Dumbledore explained patiently

"Now Horace, I must admit I didn't just come here to introduce you to Harry… a sixteen year old Tom Riddle has returned to the world of the living."

"Obviously, the writing was on the wall for any who cared to see. The chamber opening again and students being attacked, although I don't know what you mean by him being sixteen…"

"That is what I came to talk to you about, did Tom ever come to you and ask about a way to undo death?"

Harry started at that, it seemed the parallels between himself and Voldemort kept growing. Ever since Hermione had died Harry had looked into ways to bring people back to life in his spare time and now he heard that Voldemort had done the same.

"He did nothing of the sort and even if he had I would never have told him anything!" Horace said angrily

"Very well, I shall not press the issue… It just makes my job that much harder as to get rid of Voldemort once and for all I first need to determine how he escaped dying, given how you didn't seem surprised he hadn't died I had hoped you held the answer, I see I was mistaken…"

Horace looked down in shame but didn't answer, Harry could tell he _did _know but just didn't want to tell Dumbledore

"So what will you be doing to protect yourself Horace? You can't just hide in the Hogshead for the rest of your life."

"I'm going abroad, I'm leaving for America at the end of the month. You could help me by explaining why you haven't told the ministry _he_ is back and instead kept the information to yourself.

"Horace, just think for a moment. If I told the minister Voldemort was back without irrefutable evidence he would deny it, all that course of action would achieve would be me losing any influence I have left in the ministry and tell the remaining death eaters their master was back. In fact I had hoped you would help me convince Cornelius Voldemort was back without, but if you are set on leaving then I guess I shall have to do it alone."

Horace paled at his words which Harry took to assume he agreed with Dumbledore's stance, he knew Albus was talking to people to try and fight Tom and Harry was happy to let the adults deal with it for now.

"Well I shall be sorry to see you go, I hope you will stay in touch? I would hate to lose yet another friend to this war. My door is always open to you."

With that Dumbledore stood up and made to leave, Harry followed his example and had just shuffled to the end of the bench when Horace stopped him

"Wait Albus… Tom _did_ come to me… he wanted to know about horcruxes, specifically how many horcruxes somebody could make"

Dumbledore turned sharply and looked at Horace sharply "And what did you tell him? Please Horace, with this information we can be free of him once and for all"

"I told him the truth, that to split your soul once would be bad enough… But he wanted to know if it would be possible to split his soul seven times."

* * *

When they returned home Albus turned to Harry "I suspect it would be too much to hope you don't know what a horcrux is?"

Harry had come across them mentioned briefly in the journal of an old dark lord that had tried to bring back his dead wife. He had considered horcruxes but had dismissed them, Harry had followed the man's example.

"I know of them, I read the journal of Arnald the ageless and he mentioned considering making a Horcrux but said it would only make him immortal, not bring his wife back. As I already have the philosopher's stone and could probably make myself immortal with my mithril I didn't see the point in looking further into Horcruxes."

"A wise decision, to make a horcrux you must knowing raze the soul of an innocent and send it to oblivion. Such an action splits your soul irreparably, you must then bind that soul into an object you hold a great attachment too. While that object exists it acts as an anchor which prevents the main part of the soul passing on.

"But there is a great cost, in order to preserve your own soul, the soul that has been razed can never be retrieved, either as ghost or memory. It also means your own soul is tainted forever and that taint will affect your body, mind and magic in turn." There was a gravity in Dumbledore's voice that Harry had rarely heard before, after a moment spent in silence Dumbledore started a lighter conversation.

"You may be pleased to know Argus Filch has recently been cleared to learn magic, he refused to say who helped him but the magical signature under his skin is quite distinctive. I was planning on asking some of the teachers to help teach the students affected by the Chamber anyway and I was going to invite Argus along too."

"That's great, I kinda forget I helped Filch since there was an attack right after I did it."

"An understandable distraction, although with matters that involve others it would do you well to remember them."

* * *

The Dumbledorian university of Transfiguration was a marvel to behold, from the outside the building was an unassuming stone brick building. Harry figured the university's architects must have been extremely liberal with expansion charms as the entrance hall alone was bigger than the outside.

In the very center of the hall was a gigantic statue of Dumbledore, the robes of which kept changing into different materials. Sunlight streamed down from the roof despite the lack of windows and Harry swore that when the light hit the statue's eyes they twinkled exactly like the real Albus Dumbledore.

"Blimey, I almost regret not coming here now!" Harry looked over at Tonks who was gazing around amazed. Dumbledore had invited her to join them as both Harry's body guard and a transfiguration prodigy, constantly changing her body made her an expert in human transfiguration.

Dumbledore chuckled merrily and led them through the building "This used to be an old monastery but was then taken over by the ministry and turned into a fortress to defend the country from scandanavian sorcerers that sailed with the Vikings. The fort was then steadily abandoned with the decrease in raids, eventually it was turned over to the university. As you may notice they completely scrapped the interior and designed their own, if it weren't for the ley line that runs close to the building the amount of expansion charms would've been unheard of."

"I didn't know we had forts against the Viking sorcerers!" Tonks seemed shocked at the idea and Harry thought he knew why, with the invention of brooms and flying carpets forts became obsolete.

"Ah, but keep in mind back brooms were easily tracked and couldn't travel very far over sea, magical forts like this where made that lined the same ley line, which happened to follow the coast. If an enemy sorcerer wanted to invade Britain they needed to get past the forts, for a time wizarding Britain even had a navy before the Muggle's developed ironclad ships."

The few students that remained in the university over the summer greeted Dumbledore and only paid Harry a cursory glance, it was Tonks who received the most attention. Eventually they reached the lecture theatre, Harry and Tonks got to sit at the front and Harry was rather excited to watch people come in. There were only a few students that lived local enough to attend, with most of the students being international.

Eventually Dumbledore got the go ahead, Harry sat back and waited for his idol to begin.

* * *

_Don't see many people have Horace Slughorn involved in warning the world of Voldemort, he would've been potions teacher for Fudge and it wouldn't surprise me if he put in a good word for him to become minister._

_As for Harry's mithril disguise it took him slightly longer than Dumbledore to disguise himself but would be obvious he was under a magical disguise while Dumbledore would only be obvious with his signature. While Tonks can disguise herself almost instantly and only have her signature giving her away._

_The name Arnald the Ageless is the old English name for Arnold and is not a spelling mistake._


	45. Caribbean Wizardry

**This chapter replaces/expands on Fridays chapter (Birthday Party), as such if you have already read this weeks chapter you can skip ahead to the second line break for the new content.**

* * *

After Dumbledore's lecture, he led Harry and Tonks down through the school. Eventually they reached the entrance hall but rather than leave they went even deeper, after a few floors they reached a large iron door that spanned the entire corridor.

Dumbledore waved his wand in a complicated pattern and chanted under his breath, when Dumbledore thrust his wand towards the door Harry expected it to just move out of the way, instead the door seemed to just fade into nothingness.

"This area of the university is where they experiment with potentially dangerous projects, visitors aren't normally allowed past the iron door. I strongly suggest you don't go wandering off as each door requires a password."

Several floors and doors later they stopped in front of a huge wooden door, even from a distance Harry felt the magic protecting it. When he got close he saw that the entire surface was covered in runes, this indicated the door wasn't meant to stop wizards breaking in.

Harry expected Dumbledore to use some form of advanced magic to open this door, but disappointingly he just walked up to the door and knocked briskly. Somebody, presumably a professor, opened to reveal a huge warehouse.

What caught Harry's attention was a couple of dry docks at the far end of the building, only one of the docks was occupied, it looked like the university was either in the process of creating or breaking apart a yacht. Where a muggle dry dock would have blocks or scaffolding to keep the ship off the ground, this yacht was held up by some sort of levitation charm.

Despite how far down they had gone Harry could clearly see the doors at the end of the docks were level with the water outside, Harry assumed the dry dock had been part of the original fort when magical battles had been fought at sea. Wizards only used ships for leisure or to show off, yet despite this Harry decided he wanted to build a ship in the future, just to prove he could.

* * *

Slughorn had visited Dumbledore twice while Harry was staying there, he got the impression Slughorn was trying to subtly convince people Voldemort was back. Harry had wondered if he should be more involved but to his mild shock he had discovered he didn't have a desire to find or fight Voldemort.

So far Harry's goal had only been to discover as much about magic as he could, then after Hermione had died to find a way to bring back the dead. But as the sorting hat had said he had no desire to prove himself to anybody or risk his life fighting someone that had only been a hindrance.

He had confided his thoughts with Dumbledore who had sat Harry down and explained the situation to him "I will not lie to you and say nobody expects you to fight Voldemort because we both know those people are out there, but you should only fight him because _you_ want to do it. I fight Tom because I know it was my mistakes that allowed him to rise to power, I certainly won't make you fight him and I will make sure nobody else does either."

Those words brought a sense of relief and hope to Harry, something he hadn't realised he was missing. For his birthday Tonks, Luna and her father had been invited over, Harry and Tonks would then leave with them to stay at the Rookery before going on their trip.

Xeno and Luna had been fine with allowing Tonks to join them as additional security, although Xeno had started talking about how a metamorphmagus would help attract a creature Harry had never heard of.

Tonks' present had been a Black family book on metamorphmagi and a box of sweets, Xeno had given Harry a rather rare, signed book called 'Mediterranean water creatures and where to find them.' by Newt Scamander, it turned out Xeno had been friends with Newt's son at Hogwarts.

Luna had struggled to find something for Harry and had settled on painting a picture, it showed Harry with magic flowing around him. As it was a magical painting the magic kept moving and every so often lightning would flash in the background. The painted Harry looked strong and powerful, like a warlock from old.

Finally Dumbledore presented his gift, it wasn't a book like he had expected, instead Dumbledore handed him a muggle ship kit. "I saw how you looked at that yacht at the University and thought you'd like to have a chance to build and enchant a ship of your own." Other 12 year olds may have been disappointed at such a simple present, however Harry saw it for what it was.

Harry thought this was Dumbledore's way giving Harry a challenge and a hint, obviously Dumbledore thought it would be important for Harry to learn enchanting. It was just like the book on conditional magic Dumbledore had given him for Christmas, so far he had only cracked two of the enchantments and it had taken him most of the year to get that far.

* * *

The next morning Harry awoke in the Rookery's spare bedroom, he quickly dressed and went downstairs. Xenophilius was already up and reading the Daily Prophet, despite it being a rival paper Xeno had said he liked to know what people were reading.

Before he had left Dumbledore had privately told Harry that during the last war Xeno used to hide hidden codes in his paper that the resistance could use to keep up with current events. For instance Uga-Boga 'sightings' occurred in the same place a Death Eater attack had happened, after the war was over there was no reason to use secret codes.

But to maintain his cover he kept the paper as it was, the Death Eaters never figured out how the resistance got information and the Lovegood's were left alone as a crazy newspaper editor. Then several years later he had gotten in an accident and struggled to tell the difference between truth and fiction.

Harry looked over at the newspaper and was shocked to see the headline "**Albus Dumbledore tells Wizengamot you-know-who has returned!"** It seemed Dumbledore had decided to release the information after all, Harry hoped he knew what he was doing. At the same time he was glad he would be leaving England later that day as he knew the wizards wouldn't react kindly to the news.

Eventually after Luna had come downstairs and Tonks had apperated over with their portkey they locked up the house and activated the portkey, leaving England for the Caribbean. After Harry recovered from the rough travel he looked around curiously, while Harry didn't know much about the muggle Caribbean he had studied up on the magical side.

During the reign of piracy wizards had been in high demand before the statute of secrecy. The British had used wizards to track down pirates, in turn the pirates had used wizards to hide their ships. Several entrepreneurial wizards had set up what they called the 'Republic of Caribbean Wizardry' and had then laid claim to almost every island and trade route within the area.

Their idea was to enforce their law upon the area, they decreed that any ship that wanted a 'Ships wizard' needed to pay a tax to their new republic, in return for that tax they would provide competent wizards, however ships with a 'license for wizardry' were forbidden from interfering with the affairs of wizards.

For the wizards this brought a degree of safety from both sides of the conflict as any ship which mistreated their wizard would swiftly lose the right to employ any future magic user as well as providing a stable income.

Because of this many of the wizards gladly joined the republic and the British navy quickly took advantage by legitimizing them and providing a bulk tax to equip all their ships with their own wizard. Before the republic the quality of a ship's wizard was based solely on the wizard's own claims, but now there was an official body to ensure the navy was equipped with only the best.

The pirates and rogue wizards were less willing to follow the new law, the pirates soon found the few wizards they could privately hire were rarely good enough to hide them from the navy's official wizard. The rogue wizards were treated less kindly and republican wizards were encouraged to look down on rogues, the republic lacked the power to actually enforce their laws across their entire territory but they could provide enough incentive to make people follow them willingly.

What few wizarding colonies that had already been set up within the new republic had disagreed with the republic's claims, those that became too vocal often found an army of angry 'ship wizards' at their gates. When the International Confederation of Wizards started talking about hiding from muggles the Republic was one of the first to argue, with the potential loss of their main source of income the republic had turned violent. It was only the intervention of several major ICW members that ended the conflict and forced the republic to sign the statute.

The Magical Congress of the United States liked to believe the Republic was under their control, despite the fact the ICW treated them as two separate ministries. As such there was some confusion over who visitors should report to, it seemed the British ministry had decided to send them to the Republic judging by the imposing flag filling the entire wall.

While Xeno and Tonks dealt with customs Harry tried to wrap his mind around how they had left England at 10am and had arrived in the Caribbean at 5am almost immediately, the sun hadn't even risen yet. Going on autopilot Harry followed the instructions given to him, such as registering his wand and documenting any illegal items he had.

He had talked to Dumbledore over this and while any goblin owned item was banned it never said the actual mithril was illegal, despite this he had left most of his mithril at Dumbledore's. He only had his gauntlet and the ring which summoned his flask and saber, he was unwilling to try and remove the liquid mithril, which he had called mithrilium.

They hoped the notice-not would stop anyone noticing either ring, so far people only noticed his ring when he drew their attention to it. Even Dumbledore hadn't been able to see through its protections, but if he activated it the notice-not either failed or was too weak to properly conceal it. Hopefully he wouldn't need to activate the gauntlet but if he did the notice-not should at least stop people looking at what it was made of too closely.

In order to distract himself from the fear from the wild notion he would somehow have his mithril stolen, Harry focused on the guards, each one carried a pale blue staff between 4 to 5 feet tall. Each staff had a smoky quartz crystal at the top, the crystals glowed faintly and Harry could just make out the runes which had been carefully scored into them.

Staffs were generally seen as siege weapons as they could channel magic more efficiently than a wand, this meant a spell cast through a staff would not only be stronger than a wand but would also be able to go further before the spell dissipated. However the increase in power also meant a decrease in precision and control.

Very few cultures bothered to teach their children how to use a staff as wands were cheaper to make and more useful, a staff was useless for transfiguration and ward making and lacked the finesse in charms. But for a ship's wizard most of the magic they needed to cast required range and power over precision, the cost of the staff was paid for by the taxes collected from the muggles.

Caribbean wizards were considered unique in that their children still trained with staffs but also learned how to use a wand when at school, which specialised in defense against the dark arts and battle magic with only a few students specialising in charms and enchanting.

Harry decided he wanted to have a staff of his own, whether that meant learning to make one or getting one made for him he wanted the spectacle of a staff. He could see himself, staff in one hand and wand in the other, performing great feats of magic and astonishing the people around him.

Eventually they were led outside to a dock area where Xenophilius picked up the 'key' for their boat, unlike a muggle key this key was a simple flat stone, it had the identification code of their boat and a rune sequence that would activate the engine.

Xeno stepped onto the boat easily and Luna jumped in after him, Harry assumed they had both sailed before as they hardly noticed the rocking of the boat. Harry wasn't so lucky as Xeno had to help him down and Harry spent several moments stumbling around. Tonks had completely ran out of luck as the moment she tried to stand upright the boat moved and she fell over.

Harry wondered where they would all sleep as the boat seemed to only have one room, but when Harry ducked into the room he realised expansion charms had been used as there were four bedrooms, living area and kitchen. The rooms themselves were fairly cramped and didn't leave much room but it would do, even the rocking of the ship felt muted.

* * *

_As I don't kn__ow much about the Caribbean other than Pirates of the Caribbean I don't feel comfortable to write about 'muggle Caribbean' as such my magical Caribbean may be extremely different._

_One of the reasons it sometimes takes a long time to write these chapters is because I do a lot of research, mostly on Wikipedia, for instance for this I first looked at a mythical creature and found most of its myths came from the Caribbean. _

_Next I looked at what timezone it was in and found it was 5-6 hours behind London, then I looked up when the sun would rise 1st August 1992 (5:43) then for the history when Piracy began in the Caribbean area (early 1500s to 1830s) then when the Statute of secrecy was passed (1692) _

_Now I could forgo all this research and just say any irregularities are just because it's a different universe, but 1. I quite like doing the research and 2. When I read other people's stories it often bugs me if there are unexplained differences and my main aim for this story is that when it's finished it will be a story I would be happy to read._

_The name Mithrilium is only a placeholder, unless people like it in which case I'll keep it. The 'challenge' to come up with a name for liquid mithril and collective name for all states of mithril, also possibly the crystalline mithril used in Godric Gryffindor's sword. Currently favour Mitharite as suggested by Jedi Master Albus as the name for the collective term._


	46. Mermaid Lagoon

While a muggle ship may need an entire crew to sail, a magical ship could be enchanted to handle everything all by itself. As such Xeno was able to sail the boat all by himself, despite this he clearly knew his way around the boat, he even showed Harry how to steer the boat.

That night they had dinner on the deck and Xeno happily pointed out star constellations, Harry had never heard the names he gave but it was fun nonetheless and found he enjoyed life out at sea. Tonks didn't agree with him, the constant rocking of the boat along with the sea air was getting to her, meaning she spent most of her time inside the cabin.

Tonks did help Harry and Luna with their transfiguration homework and even taught them some useful tricks to get better results, it turned out that doing self transfiguration practically every day made it easy to achieve an O+ for the NEWT exam. She also taught them some basic auror shields that would block most attacks, Harry was proud to say he had already known about most of them as he had used them in his mithril shield.

However he felt it made sense to learn how to successfully cast them by himself as he wouldn't always have his mithril on hand, if somebody attacked him right now he only had his gauntlet to save him. When he wasn't training with Tonks or chatting with Luna and Xeno he was reading a fascinating book Xeno had given him at the start of their trip.

It was the life story of a wizard called Harold Black who had lived centuries ago, he had been born blind but had the ability to see magic. It sounded exactly like Harry's mage sight except much stronger, Harold Black had used his ability to practically rewrite the way transfiguration was taught. But that wasn't why Xeno had suggested it.

Harold Black had inherited an invisibility cloak from his father and had been famous for his own personal symbol, a triangle with a circle and line. The exact same symbol that would later be adopted as the symbol of the Deathly Hallows and later by Grindlewald.

The story goes that he had been the target of an assassination, the explosion had been set off right next to him and had reduced most of Diagon Alley to rubble. When the dust had settled Harold had stood there, completely untouched. He had then walked down the street saying the names of the dying and the wounded, for each name he said he would spin his ring three times and the person would rise again.

It was a miracle of magic which had never been seen again. It seemed to be one of the few mentions of the Resurrection Stone, as while the ring was never named it matched the Three Brothers tale. That his cloak matched Harry's cloak also helped them believe it was accurate.

"Do you know if Harold ever got the wand?" Harry asked Xeno

"Legend never tells us but I would think not, we know he passed the Cloak onto his daughter who later married into the Potter line. But the Stone remains a mystery, they say it was buried with him in Hangleton. Unfortunately I was unable to find his grave, which may mean he wasn't buried there… or was buried under a different name."

"I assume… he is actually _dead_? Like if he had the Cloak _and_ Stone maybe was made immortal?" Harry asked hesitantly

"If so I suspect it would require the pair to do so, the Cloak to protect about physical damage while the Stone protects from amortal ailments, such as age and decay. As you clearly have the Cloak in your possession unless Harold found the Wand I don't see how he could still be alive so many years later." Xeno said dismissively.

* * *

After several days of sailing they came across their first magical island, there were two easy ways to identify a magical island: The first clue were the powerful wards that needed to be passed to even see the island, the second were the giant towers that looked over the entire island and maintained the wards.

The wards only repelled the muggles and stopped the islands being found but even then the drain on the wards was incredible, these wards often went far underwater and it was a well known that salt water was corrosive to wards.

This was why the towers had been built, their main purpose was to power the wards by drawing in as much natural magic as possible and channeling it into the wards. This had the side effect of weakening the magic of everything else on the island, including witches and wizards.

As they sailed closer to the island and its tower Harry could feel his magic slowly slipping away. his mithril ring was also being affected and Harry noted with some concern it had began to grow cold, the Philosophers Stone had also lost its bright red colouration and had become a dull orange.

The only thing stopping Harry panicking and trying to get away as fast as possible was Nicolas' assurance, the alchemist had helped set up some of the towers and knew from experience that the Stone would go back to normal after leaving the range of the tower. Harry grinned when he imagined the tower workers trying to work out why they had suddenly gotten a spike in magic.

When they reached the harbour Xeno tapped his wand on a knot of wood near the ship's wheel, which sent ropes flying and moored the boat to the nearest jetty. Tonks was one of the first off the ship under the pretense of "making sure the ropes were done properly", Harry and Luna then joined her on the jetty as Xeno made sure everything was locked up.

Most locking charms and runes would be drained or weakened of course but at the same time any lock picking charm would be equally weakened. As it was their boat had been made with the magical islands in mind so the doors had muggle locks alongside magical ones.

Xeno and Luna then led them through the small town until they reached a hut that overlooked the harbour, it was obvious both had been here before as they had hardly hesitated the entire journey. After knocking Xeno opened the door and led their party inside.

"Ah Xeno! So long has it been, sit sit." The owner of the voice reminded Harry strongly of Dumbledore in both age and the twinkling eyes, the old Jamaican man exuded the same sense of calm authority as the headmaster. The room itself was bare apart from a desk that had been made to look like a ship and several muggle filing cabinets that looked like they had seen better days.

"Greetings Vin, you of course know my daughter Luna and this is her friend Harry Potter and his guardian Nymphadora Tonks. Everyone, this is Vincent Talin, the Map Master for the area and an expert in marine zoology."

Harry was pleased to see Vin didn't seem to recognise his name, as Voldemort had never affected the Republic of Caribbean Wizardry his defeat and thus the name of Harry Potter had never reached its shores. The fact Vin was a Map Master was a surprise to him however, being a map master meant that in the early days of the Republic one of his ancestors had sailed around as much of the Caribbean as they could and mapped as much as they could see.

They had then made each area unplottable so anyone that wanted a map of the area had to visit the map master, any map they gave out would also be impossible to copy and would destroy itself after a certain amount of time had passed. As the Map Masters made sure their government profited from their activities nothing could be done about them.

"So tell me Xeno, what brings you to my shores? I never did find those Snorkacks and if they exist they don't live here." Vin said happily, his accent wasn't as strong as it had been when they had entered making Harry believe he used it to impress visitors.

"Oh we aren't looking for Snorkacks this time, I thought we might try and track down the mermaids." Xeno seemed to take some delight from the shocked look on Vin's face at this, the man then smirked and started rummaging through his filing cabinets. Expansion charms had obviously been used as Vin stuck his entire arm inside one cabinet, he returned with a file marked 'mermaids and other humanoid water spirits'.

He then threw the file onto the desk which creaked ominously and pushed it over to Xeno

"We been studying these creatures for as long as I can remember and all we know can fit inside a single folder." Vin said regretfully

Xeno drew out a detailed drawing of what Harry considered at first a typical mermaid, half woman, half fish. Harry noticed her eyes were distinctly bigger than a humans and she didn't seem to have any eyelids, her iris also filled the eye socket meaning her entire eye was a brilliant blue. The eye sockets themselves were slightly higher up her head so that when she could see forward while swimming.

Her hands had webbing going up the knuckles, there were also small fins jutting from her forearms. Her nose was almost completely flat with only two small slits and her neck had two pouches that could've been gills, although the annotation indicated they were actually air sacks.

"What we do know about them is that they prefer the deep sea, you may be lucky to catch them surfacing for air as from what we can tell they don't have gills. From what we can tell their magic slows down cell decay and can take in a small amount of oxygen by swimming, so they can often last several weeks on a single breath." It was obvious Vin knew what he was talking about and he became more animated the longer he talked.

"They be omnivores like us so their diet consists of both flora and fauna, so be careful when you approach them. While we've never caught them eating a human there's nothing to say they _won't_. Unlike their whale brethren their natural magic allows them to survive on land too, so don't be tricked into thinking you're safe cause you're not in the water."

"If we do need to flee from a mermaid what would you suggest?" Tonks said, as an auror it was her job to not only predict possible attacks but to ensure there was a way to escape.

"If you were attacked? Flee to the sky or somewhere dense like a forest, they can't follow you to the sky directly although they can jump bloody high. Underwater your best hope is to try and apparate away, I've never seen an animal move as fast as a mermaid, especially when they be hunting their prey."

Xeno and Vin then started talking about popular spots for finding mermaids and then they were off again, when they left the wards the island behind them disappeared instantly and Harry could feel his energy slowly recharging.

Theoretically the mermaids should be easy to find as the wards which kept muggles finding the islands would kill a mermaid, as such the Republic just kept a watch over areas the mermaids frequented and obliviated any muggle that saw something they shouldn't.

"Would your power allow you to turn into a mermaid Tonks?" Luna asked suddenly

"Erm… maybe, I've never tried before. It would probably use up a lot of energy to change, honestly I've never experimented too much with non-human features." Tonks said

"So you couldn't grow wings or extra limbs?" Harry asked sadly, one of the reason he had wanted to replicate Tonks' ability was because he liked the idea of having wings that were a part of him and not just artificial.

"I… don't know, I would need to study a bird's wings and then in order to grow them I would need to sacrifice material from elsewhere, such as my arms. On top of that extra limbs or wings aren't that useful in my line of work, we all carry brooms which would presumably be faster than wings anyway."

"Hmm, but what if you were able to make limbs without sacrificing something else, such as an alchemical matrix that would provide you the material as you need it?" Technically alchemy wasn't capable of doing something that advanced as the energy required would be immense, however both the Philosopher's Stone and mithril would solve that issue.

"If I had an infinite supply of material? Yeah I guess if I had that anything would be possible, but this is all theoretical right?" Tonks said doubtful

"Sure" Harry said easily, he didn't yet trust Tonks enough to reveal either the Stone or mithril but that wouldn't stop him trying to get Tonks to teach him how to become a metamorphmagus.

* * *

"Mermaid dead ahead" Xeno cried out cheerfully, Harry and Luna rushed to the side of the boat and looked over eagerly. Harry was disappointed to only see a dark shadow far below them but then the shadow started moving, Harry thought it only looked large because of the distance until it erupted out of the surface and flew over them.

The mermaid was easily as large as their boat and her tail would've put a blue whale to shame, Harry immediately understood what Vin had said about them jumping high. That single jump had sent the gigantic mermaid high enough to clear the mast and dive the other side of the boat.

Harry expected a huge splash but she cut into the water easily. Where a human shoulder came out almost at a 90 degree angle the mermaid's shoulder was streamlined at 45 degrees to lower the water resistance, up close it was obvious her skin was also much smoother than a humans and seemed to be coated in an oily substance.

Under the water she seemed to just disappear into the deeps, it was as if the light was absorbed rather than reflected meaning even just a few feet under the surface she became blended into the bottom of the ocean. From what Harry could see it looked like she swam like a dolphin and was easily going 40 knots.

Aside from the physical differences between a human and mermaid there were a few subtle differences. Her spine moved in a way that wasn't possible for a human to replicate and her hair seemed to direct the water around her like a muggle windscreen, even though Harry would swear he saw her hair move freely when she had surfaced.

"Look at the way they're swimming, they have a pack structure but every so often one will dart off and circle the congregation, possibly the protector looking for threats. As Vin said this is a popular mating spot for them as that lagoon over there allows them to hatch their young without worrying about predators attacking. You can actually see where the cove has been eroded by generations of merfolk using it, see." Xeno was in his element here, pointing out odd little details that Harry doubted he would've seen otherwise.

They anchored the ship some distance from the lagoon as they didn't want the mermaids to see them as a threat. They planned to spend the next day studying them up close and taking some pictures and would then see if they wanted to stay for a second day or move on to find another tribe of merfolk.

"So Harry, any theories on the mermaids?" Xeno asked

"Yeah Harry, I saw you how closely you looked at those mermaids." Tonks added, winking at Harry, for his part Harry didn't understand what Tonks was hinting at so decided to just ignore her.

"Well obviously they have a high store of magic. Their skin is so densely packed with magic that when I used my magesight I could hardly penetrate it, the magic seems to take the oxygen from the water and keep what remains away from their skin. Like a shield charm, but what is really cool is as there is less magic underwater they draw their energy from the water resistance, so the faster they move the more power they have and the longer they can last without breathing."

"And did you see inside her?" Xeno asked eagerly, he had written down everything Harry had come up with, as having just glanced at a mermaid Harry had almost doubled how much they knew about them. Mostly this was because nobody had been crazy enough to get close enough to a mermaid and those that had gotten close didn't have mage sight as strong as Harry's.

"Yeah, their lungs seem to have a natural form of expansion charms since the inside appears larger than the outside, the organs of the mermaid also have some sort of magical enhancement, possibly to let them cope with their huge bodies. Again when below water they draw their magic from moving, which indicates if they were to be trapped underwater and couldn't move they would last an hour max before dying."

"And above water?" Xeno asked, Luna and Tonks forgotten

"Well their magic could be drawn from the surroundings but I expect they would lose magic quicker than they gain. When underwater most of their magic goes to converting water to oxygen but above water the magic would need to compensate for the stronger gravity."

* * *

_Lost track of the week again, luckily this time I noticed in time to get a chapter written on time. Harold Black is a thinly veiled reference to '__Blindness' by AngelaStarCat, it should be noted that I have only loosely based the story on Blindness mainly to avoid spoiling someone else's story. I strongly suggest you read Blindness as it is easily one of the top 10 fanfics I have ever read. _

_I feel I should also mention that Harry's motivation in this for the moment is mostly a desire to be like a wizard from his books, meaning anything that sounds 'cool' to him will be studied. As a 13 year old nobody really cares and those that should like Dumbledore are just happy to see him act like a kid. _


	47. As the crow flies

During a moment of quiet Harry worked on his latest project, while he hadn't been able to import any extra mithril into the Caribbean that didn't mean he couldn't make more of it whilst there.

He currently had a mithril crow sitting on his arm, if he looked too closely it became blindingly obvious the bird was a fake. The feathers were completely flat and were smooth to the touch and if it caught the light properly it would appear reflective.

But that didn't matter to Harry, all he cared about was the fact his latest version of the crow worked. He still couldn't get it to find anyone based on their name alone but it could track signatures, Dumbledore had sent him a letter wishing him well but he had signed it with his mithril pen.

Harry had then been able to extract that magical signature and load it into the crow's memory. Deep inside the crows chest eight mithril pills were ready to store signatures, currently he had one for Luna, Xeno and now Dumbledore.

Something he had luckily seen in advance was that he couldn't get the crow to track his signature when it needed to return to him, this was due to his mithril making his signature scattered all over Britain. He got around this by tying a metaphysical tether between him and the bird that would be as long as needed.

When his crow needed to return to him it would just follow the tether home. As it worked differently to a normal post owl the crow couldn't be stopped by a mail catching ward or other such charms that were meant to stop owls.

As it had been programmed to give off a strong notice-not while in flight, Harry didn't see the point in making it behave like a real bird. If during its flight it ran into something in its way it would just turn itself metaphysical until it safely passed through. Since it was meant to fly high up in the atmosphere it was unlikely to run into anything mid-flight but it would still need to descend to deliver its cargo.

Harry then attached his letter to Dumbledore and sent the crow on its way. Unhampered by the complex systems which make up a real bird his crow never tired, never slept and never suffered. Theoretically Harry could also make and use different animals according to his needs.

His letter just summarized his time at Mermaid Lagoon, it had been fascinating to watch the mermaids in their natural habitat and how they used their magic. While they couldn't cast actual spells like a wizard or elf they could still exert their will on the world.

Having taken several pages worth of notes on their use of magic Harry felt he now understood why they were so hard to find. They gave off a very strong conditional notice-not, the condition was that you had to know they existed to see them. Before seeing the mermaids Harry had never considered conditional enchantments could be used like that.

He now wanted to try and break the third conditional charm on Dippet's book as he suspected Dumbledore had done exactly what the mermaids did. It also gave him several ideas on how to make his notice-nots stronger.

It also seemed like the mermaids had some mind control magic as they seemed able to talk to each other telepathically, Harry had also noticed that while hunting they would send out beams of magic which made their prey turn around and swim right into their open mouths.

The effects of this magic was eerily similar to the imperious curse, which led to Harry wondering if the curse had been made to mimic the mermaid's power. Considering the sirens were a close relative to the mermaids and were famous for using their power on humans it wasn't as if their power was unheard of.

Having grown bored of studying the mermaids they had decided to go back to Vin's island and sold the information they had collected. Vin had been so eager to get the information first he had paid them enough to pay for their holiday and a bit extra, he had also been delighted with Luna's painting. While Harry and Xeno had collected notes on the mermaids Luna had made a full colour painting.

As they left Vin's office he had been in the process of hanging the painting behind his desk. Any painting made by a witch or wizard would in turn become magical, often this just meant they would move around occasionally and only had low intelligence. To get a more complex painting like at Hogwarts it needed to be painted by a professional and then 'charged' by a powerful witch or wizard.

Luna had asked Harry to charge her painting and he had been happy to help, when he had finished the painting looked like a window into a mermaid enclosure rather than just an oil painting. Tonks even swore the painting had tried to flirt with her although she had been unable to prove it.

Since they only had a few days left in the Caribbean before they had to return home they decided to take the scenic route back to the republican ministry. It was during this trip home that they ran into a storm, they had been fortunate enough to have near perfect weather for their trip but it seemed their luck had run out.

As the rocking of the ship grew in intensity Tonks hurried into the cabin, thinking quickly Harry spread an umbrella of magic over their ship that would redirect most of the raindrops. Without his backup mithril he wouldn't be able to cast any other magic while maintaining the umbrella but that was a minor issue.

The rain became the least of Harry's worries when a huge tentacle rose out of the water, it was only the string of curses Xeno fired which stopped the tentacle crashing down on the deck. The tentacle slipped back into the waves but it did little to settle their nerves.

A huge shark head rose high on the other side of the boat, but where a shark would have a tail fin this _creature_ had over a dozen tentacles. Despite the danger Harry found himself looking at the tentacles that seemed to be resting on the surface of the water, it was as if the water under the creature's tentacles had gone solid.

Tonks stumbled on deck just as Xenophilius shouted the creature's name "It's a Lusca! Aim for its eyes!" As if the creature had heard him, three tentacles rose and started falling onto the ship.

Xeno and Tonks started shooting at one of the tentacles which started to slow but that wasn't enough to stop the other two, thinking quickly Harry dropped his umbrella before twirled his wand anti-clockwise twice and then thrust towards the tentacles. An opaque green shield shimmered into existence between the boat and tentacles.

The shield had been enough to stop a charging yeti, unfortunately for the poor witch it hadn't been enough to stop Lockhart. The shield could only stop physical momentum but it did it well, when the tentacles struck the shield they stopped instantly.

Harry then felt the energy from the tentacles race down his shield straight towards him, rather than let it reach him he turned the energy into thermal energy and directed it at the lusca using his Philosopher's Stone as the catalyst.

With the reaction complete the shield disappeared and was replaced by super hot air, it was easy to see where the heat was as the air steamed around it and the two tentacles blistered painfully. Using the last of the kinetic energy Harry directed it to push the heat forwards, sending the wave of heat directly into the creature's face.

This sent the creature fleeing back into the water but also saw Harry collapse onto the deck, despite the Stone handling most of the energy both the shield and transfusion had cost Harry greatly. Tonks hurried over to Harry to make sure he was alright as Xeno got Luna, Harry was vaguely aware of the two shouting over the storm before he felt the lurch of apparition and fell unconscious.

* * *

Harry's crow was unaware of his masters plight, truthfully it wasn't aware of anything. All it knew was where it's target was and how to get there, but thanks to its 'adapt' ideology it could also correct itself should its target move as its maker had wanted. But this wasn't all the adapt ideology did, it also allowed the crow to adapt its own ideologies to best serve its master.

It had looked at its instruction to remain unnoticed and decided the best way to do this was to achieve this was to fly with other birds where possible, but when it had first tried to fly with other birds they had scattered.

After what passed as trial and error the crow decided the birds must recognise it was different, to solve this is started weaving together ideologies written in pure magical intent. By the time it was finished the other birds were incapable of seeing it as anything other than a real bird.

By then it had reached its target and dove steeply, the speed it was traveling at would've killed most birds but the mithril construct barely noticed. Just as it was about to plummet into the ground it extended its wings and performed a levitation charm on itself.

* * *

Dumbledore was sitting in his sitting room chatting with Horace, the man still planned on fleeing the country but he had wanted to make sure the ministry had started doing something before he left. Albus thought he had seen almost everything but he almost jumped out of his seat when a crow soared through the window.

Normally that wouldn't be unheard off except for the fact the window was closed and the bird had passed through as if it were a ghost.

"Good lord, what's that!" Slughorn demanded, clutching his chest and breathing deeply.

"I believe you'd call it a crow." Dumbledore said blandly, he had used his own form of magesight to identify the bird and had calmed considerably when he recognised Harry's signature. "It seems Harry has a message for me."

"That bird belongs to Harry? But thought he was in the Caribbean." Slughorn said amazed

"So it would seem" Albus read over Harry's letter quickly and couldn't help laughing, sometimes he wondered if the sorting hat had put Harry in the right house. The boy was often far too rash, such as running headlong into the chamber of secrets or experimenting with possibly dangerous magic.

But then he would show his Ravenclaw tendencies by doubling how much was known about a magical creature while on holiday, the hat must've seen the boy's curiosity and studious nature outweighed his recklessness. Dumbledore could easily see Harry taking his job as Headmaster in a few decades.

"Well while I'm glad to hear Harry is doing well can we get back to business Albus?" Slughorn asked cautiously

"Yes yes, where were we?"

"We were talking about what to do about Fudge, he has the potential to be a great minister but not while Lucius has his ear. We either have to remove Fudge or Lucius and I'm not sure who would be easier." Slughorn said adamantly

"But I fear that should we be too hasty we have find ourselves with somebody even worse"

"Good heavens Albus, if we _don't_ act we'll definitely end up with someone worse anyway. You are in the perfect place to strike, spread the word to other countries and get their support, convince the wizengamot that any war would be bad for them. By merlin teach the _children_ the difference between right and wrong, but don't just stay in your school and hope something happens!"

* * *

_I see next chapter as Sirius breaking out of Azkaban and the summer holiday ending then Harry returning to Hogwarts, it's rather frustrating since I have so much planned for years 3 and 4 but I first have to get there. _

_As for why Sirius breaks out after Harry's birthday rather than before is because the Weasleys never went to Egypt in this timeline so never appeared on the paper, what did appear on the paper was Dumbledore saying Voldemort returned which would definitely see Sirius try to leave to protect Harry._


	48. Azkaban Prison

"Professor it's my fault, I was meant to protect him and I failed." Tonks said mournfully

"Nymphadora, your job is to protect Harry from danger, from what Xenophilius has told me you did exactly that." Dumbledore said kindly

"But I should've been on deck with him before that beast showed up, if I had been able to react sooner Harry wouldn't have needed to use that shield!"

"Harry would've tried to help regardless of how many people were on that deck. The magic required to power that shield is proportional to how much energy it needs to stop, if all three of those tentacles had struck his shield the power would've killed him. It took both you and Xenophilius were needed to make sure only two tentacles struck."

Albus didn't truly know _where_ Harry had learned that charm, Nicolas had sworn he hadn't taught it, which led him to believe Gilderoy had taught it. When he had first employed Gilderoy he had wished for a better alternative, then he had shown a remarkable spike in his abilities.

Around the same time that Harry had started taking private lessons from the man. Now Gilderoy was stuck in St Mungo's severe injuries ward, trying to undo whatever dark curse Tom Riddle used on him, the healers were unsure if he would ever be able to see again.

Albus looked at the sleeping form of Harry sadly, he hadn't woken since returning to England through an emergency portkey arranged by the Caribbean republic. Poppy had looked over Harry and determined he was just suffering magical exhaustion yet again.

Physically it was hard to guess Harry's age, he had entered Hogwarts as one of the smaller children but by the time his first year was over he had become one of the tallest. Albus attributed this to Harry's power and mithril.

A wizard's magic would always enhance his body, this was how students were able to eat whatever they wanted while maintaining near perfect health. If a wizard had magic to spare then it made sense it would enhance the body beyond what was normal.

* * *

Deep within the high security wing of Azkaban, Sirius Black stared at the Daily Prophet intently. Fudge's visit had been delayed by Dumbledore's attempts to make him see reason, as such when Sirius had asked for the paper Fudge had unthinkingly sent the issue stating Dumbledore believed Voldemort had returned.

Sirius had read the article so many times the words were seared in his brain, when he had first read it he had been filled with dread, but that dread had quickly turned into purpose. Previously he had known his godson was safe and the blind depression he had fallen into was greater than his desire to see his godson that thought he was responsible for James and Lily's deaths.

But with Voldemort back Sirius saw a chance to do his duty and keep his godson from harm, it was a guiding light to bring him out of his depression and work on his escape. Each time he read the article it was like a flash of light on the horizon, something to draw him home.

* * *

It had taken Harry several days to get back to full strength, luckily he hadn't burnt through his blackthorn wand. Unlike his walnut wand the blackthorn wand had been made to channel an abundance of magic, if the magic passing through the wand started to exceed the capabilities of the wand the magic would be pushed into the petrified elder wood hilt.

The petrified wood could then steadily radiate the magic and flush it out of the wand. It was almost the exact inverse of what the Philosopher's stone did which impressed Harry immensely.

Dumbledore had decided to wait until Harry had recovered before breaking the news of Sirius' escape.

"Harry my boy, please sit down… there is something I need to tell you. What do you know of House Black?" Dumbledore asked seriously, there was no humour or warmth in the man's expression and his eyes were sad and downcast.

"Very little, I only remember Bathsheda mentioning a magical mirror the Blacks owned and Tonks got me the Black book. Oh and that Harold Black collected two of the Hallows."

"I'm not surprised, well the Blacks were one of the first families to start believing in blood purity, their family motto is even 'always pure'. That should give you some idea of their views. Despite their views they were also notoriously powerful combatants, one of the reasons for their belief in blood purity was the numerous magical abilities they possessed."

"Like metamorphing? Tonks is related to the Blacks isn't she?"

"Yes and yes, almost every metamorphmagi over the last millennium have been closely related to the Blacks. Over such abilities include a natural affinity for occlumency and phobikinesis, the ability to control and manipulate fears. There are also rumours that the Black grimoire is the single biggest collection of dark spells in the world."

"My father was friends with a Black… Sirius Black right?" Harry asked suddenly, remembering the report cards Dumbledore had given him on the day Hermione had died.

Dumbledore sighed deeply "Yes, it is Sirius we need to talk about. Despite his upbringing it was thought he was different from his family, by the time they had reached their fourth year your father and Sirius were like brothers. So much so that when they went into hiding under fidelius charms they were each other's secret keeper.

"It seems we had all been fooled though, as Voldemort was able to walk right into your parents home and Black was seen moments after their death it is clear James put his trust in the wrong person. It is our belief that Black was Voldemort's second-in-command." Dumbledore spoke softly as he didn't want to upset Harry further.

"Sirius Black is the reason my parents died?" Harry asked coldly, while his face was like stone his eyes looked like a fire had been lit behind them. His magic radiated off him angrily and Dumbledore felt a shiver of fear run down him when the boy's magic danced over the room.

While Harry wasn't strong enough to beat Dumbledore yet his magic was still capable of dealing a great degree of damage, it was only his belief that Harry would never hurt him that stopped Albus bringing his own magic to bear.

"What happened next?" Harry asked after a moment

"Peter Pettigrew, another close friend of your father, went after Black. He caught up to Black in a muggle street. When the ministry arrived all they found was Black standing over a crater, the bodies of a dozen muggles and Pettigrew's finger."

"And why are you telling me this _now_? Did you not think I'd have wanted to know this _years ago?_ Or did you not think I was _ready_" Harry spat, his face contorting in anger

"You are right… I didn't think you were ready to handle the news… Sirius was locked up in Azkaban and you seemed happy." Dumbledore said sadly "I wanted you to be focused on the future and not the past."

"Well you thought wrong… So why tell me now? Wait, you said he _was_ in Azkaban, he escaped didn't he? So much for being inescapable"

"Yes he has, before he escaped the guards said he would say 'he has returned' nonstop. Fudge then decided to send dementors to Hogwarts, which will only endanger the students and make it easier for Voldemort to free his remaining followers."

"So what? You want me to be on my guard against Black and Riddle?"

"Yes, but hopefully they will not be able to get you at Hogwarts. It's actually the dementors I am most concerned about, we already know you can at least hold your own against Tom but only one spell is known to defeat a dementor."

"The patronus right? Well I guess I'd better start learning it, how hard could it be?" Harry said bitterly, he was angry at Dumbledore for keeping secrets about his own life from him, Black for getting his parents murdered. He was also angry at Fudge for not believing them and setting dementors on Hogwarts.

"It will take a long time to learn, luckily the new defense teacher is more than capable of teaching it to you. For now Auror Moody and I were about to inspect Black's cell for clues, if you wanted I could bring you with us."

* * *

The boat to Azkaban island had been built specifically for the purpose of bringing prisoners to the island and guards back home. While not huge it was large enough to hold just over a dozen people and still have room for cargo, this meant it looked rather empty with just Dumbledore, Moody, Tonks, the two guards escorting them to the prison and Harry.

Azkaban itself was a tall imposing building that looked like it had risen straight out of the sea. There were no seams or cuts and the only gaps in the fortress was the single gate and small barred windows, even the bars were made of the same material.

As they got closer his mage sight was able to tell him what his eyes couldn't, the feel of the fortress was like a twisted version of his mithril, right down to the way the fortress was made of pure magic. But while his mithril was a brilliant green and the sword of Gryffindor was a bright red Azkaban was a horrible blend of dull grey and cold icy blue.

The drain of the fortress was like nothing he had felt before, it made the ward towers in the Caribbean had look like a mild inconvenience. Harry noted with some alarm that Dumbledore visibly sag the closer they got to the prison.

When one the guards asked if he wanted to turn around and go back Albus waved him off "It's nothing to worry about, when you get to my age you become more dependent on your magic, having it leave is a shock to the system."

Once ashore they were led quickly up the small path and into what passed as the reception area, they met the warden of the prison who personally checked their identities and had them hand over their wands and any weapons. If the atmosphere wasn't so gloomy Harry would've found it funny when Dumbledore pulled out three of his wands, one after another.

Just like his Cloak the Elder wand could avoid all forms of detection and was certainly too valuable to leave in the hands of the guards, Harry then looked over at Moody's table and was surprised to see five wands of various shapes and sizes, his staff, a dagger and a small sword that he had hidden in his false leg.

Harry's own wand was handed over easily along with his saber's ring, the gauntlet's ring remained unseen even with its weakened protections. Just like in the Caribbean the philosopher's Stone had started to heat up, as if it was determined to counter the constant cold of azkaban all by itself.

The warmth from his ring spread along his entire body rather than focus on just his finger so it wasn't too uncomfortable, when he noticed how much Tonks, Moody and Dumbledore where shivering he privately thanked his ring for keeping him warm.

They were led up so many staircases Harry lost count and soon he lost all sense of direction, he was glad they had the guards as he had no idea the way out. When Harry thought about it more he realised that was probably the point, if he couldn't find his own way out then the prisoners probably couldn't either.

Eventually they reached the high security wing and an empty cell, the guards then helpfully told them this had been Black's cell as if they would've brought them to a completely different and empty cell. There were a couple newspapers scattered around the cell, but all but one had been pushed under the slab of mithril that passed as a bed.

Harry used his magesight to try and get a fix on Black's signature but if any signature was left it was being hidden behind the mithril's signature. Turning to Moody he saw the auror living up to his name and frowning _moodily_, his magical eye whizzed around frantically but Harry figured the auror couldn't find anything.

Looking at the newspaper carefully he was just able to make out a faint red rose colour on the paper, he quickly picked up a second paper and noted how the paper itself didn't have a signature. This indicated the signature on the most recent paper was Black's, to be sure Harry handed it over to Moody and pointed out the signature.

"The boy's done it again Albus, this is Black's signature alright. Potter, do you think you can track this?" Moody said gruffly, Harry couldn't help noticing the auror was speaking very quietly.

"Probably not, as azkaban drains magic a signature wouldn't last long, especially not long enough for me to track it now."

They spent a few more minutes searching the cell but they found nothing of note, eventually they left the foul prison and returned to Godric's Hollow. Far away in Little Whinging a huge black dog ran between the shadows, he had a vague memory of Hagrid saying he needed to deliver Harry to his relatives so that was where he would begin his search.

* * *

_Sirius won't be different to canon or have new powers, but I felt if the Black family had several powerful abilities that were relatively unique to them it would definitely increase their desire to stay "pure". _


	49. Dementors

What was left of Harry's summer was spent between Dumbledore's and Luna's homes, he saw a lot less of Tonks as even though she had been hired as his official bodyguard she still needed to spend time in the office.

Dumbledore's personal library was filled with more books than Harry could ever read in a single summer, but despite this very few of those books appealed to Harry. Among the books of defense and transfiguration was politics and history, subjects which Harry had little interest in.

He had pored over most of the books on doing actual magic, he had opened a book of magical theory once and after several minutes of staring mindlessly at the first page had shut it again. Judging by how the book looked practically untouched Dumbledore hadn't read it much either.

Harry felt like he had learned a lot over that summer, most importantly that he needed to find something to do in the muggle world that he enjoyed next summer. When the first of September finally came around Harry found himself looking forward to Hogwarts greatly.

While he still found most of the students either annoying or forgettable and he often almost died every year, he could still say there was rarely a dull moment there. He would have new subjects to learn and he hoped the class material would be new for him.

As had become normal for him Harry arrived at Kings Cross several hours early, this time however Tonks was escorting him onto the train. Dumbledore had suggested Harry sit near the defense teacher who would be posted on the train, as there was only one adult on the train Harry guessed he must be the new teacher.

He couldn't help wondering where the trolley witch was, the only times he had ever seen her was when she sold the sweets, Harry could only assume the witch somehow got on the train mid-journey.

When he knocked on the compartment door the man didn't stir, entering quietly Harry looked at the man carefully. He appeared to be sleeping but the man's magic was too active for him to be unconscious.

Tonks had been teaching Harry basic self defense, which had included identifying threats. Harry could imagine somebody pretending to be asleep only to attack him once he had let his guard down when the train had left.

"Excuse me, if you're trying to get to sleep I would suggest setting up a silencing ward, if you're only pretending could you stop…"

The man cracked open one eye and looked at Harry speculatively "You must be Harry, Professor Dumbledore did mention you would realise if I tried to deceive you. Foolishly I thought I knew better" the man chuckled dryly, he had shifted upright so that he was facing Harry rather than lean on the window.

"I'm Remus Lupin, although I suppose that would be Professor Lupin now…"

"Harry Potter, did you go to school with my dad because your name sometimes appears in his detention slips."

The man suddenly appeared less sure of himself "Yes, I knew your father, we were in the same year."

Before Harry could reply the door to the compartment opened and Luna breezed in, which gave Harry a distraction to levitate his and Luna's trunks into the luggage rack.

When he turned back to Professor Lupin he frowned when he saw the man had gone back to pretending to be asleep and had even applied a notice-not, a rather strong notice-not at that.

Despite the fact it wasn't the strongest notice-not Harry had ever encountered, it was just strong enough that Harry would've needed to put in some effort to break through. Harry felt professor Lupin would see this as rather rude and he didn't want to annoy somebody who had known his father by pushing him to talk when he clearly didn't want to. There would be time to talk during the school year.

As they had spent most of their summer together Harry and Luna didn't need to catch up, as had become normal Harry read a book, in this case 'The soul of Transfiguration by A. Dumbledore & G. Grindelwald' which he had borrowed from Dumbledore's library.

It mainly consisted in an in depth discussion on what wizard's considered the soul and how the soul remained unaffected even when the body was transfigured, Grindelwald hypothesised that if the body could be changed without affecting the soul then the soul could be transfigured in turn.

While Harry read his book Luna read a magazine, normally Magizoology Monthly or the Quibbler, they would talk as they read and bring up anything interesting and discuss it with each other.

Over the journey very few people bothered to talk to Harry, despite the fact it was him that had killed the basilisk some of the students had decided that he had set up the entire thing to make him more popular. It was only students like Ron who came in to thank him yet again or Justin who said he was grateful Harry had tried to save him.

Then the train suddenly slowed to a stop despite the fact Hogwarts was still over an hour away. "Do you think we broke down?" Luna asked warily, Harry had noticed that whenever she was scared she dropped her airy attitude and became much more serious.

"Can't, the train runs on magic and has never broken down since it was set up… Nothing should be able to stop this train, even a landslide would be pushed out of the way before the train even got close…" As he spoke a deathly cold had started to spread throughout the train, a cold Harry had felt before.

He eyed the professor warily but sometime over the journey the man had actually fallen asleep and his notice-not had started to unravel, it was unlikely the man would notice anything dangerous until it was too late.

Before he could wake the professor up, their door started rolling open and mist started seeping in, moving quickly Harry slammed the door shut and applied the most complex locking charm he knew.

Harry couldn't help feeling terrified when the charm started breaking apart, it wasn't being unlocked by a counter charm or ripped apart by another wizard, it was simply ceasing to be. It reminded Harry of the basilisk venom when it had come into contact with his mithril except this was so much slower, which also meant Harry had time to get scared.

He pushed his palm against the lock of the door and filled it with mithril with the ideology of 'keep this door closed no matter what!', this meant the mithril not only filled up the lock it also spread over the entire door frame.

Even Dumbledore would have struggled to overcome the mithril, he probably would've chosen to just destroy the door rather than unlock it, but whatever was on the other side of the door just fought back harder. The deathly cold became much more intense and the mist started leaking through the seams of the wood and the windows began to crack.

"Wake up the professor!" Harry snapped at Luna, breaking her out of her terror and rushed to fulfill his order.

The mithril started icing over and cracks were soon running over the metal, as if in empathy the various mithril objects on his person had also begun growing cold except for his ring which once more filled Harry with warmth. He also started developing a numbing feeling in his arm and skull, exactly where the mithrilium was.

He now understood why Azkaban prison had been so cold. The mithril had taken in the cold of the dementors and spread it everywhere, even to places the dementors didn't visit. Which meant the creature trying to force entry was a dementor…

He didn't need to wait long to see what the creature looked like, with a great crack the door's window gave in and Harry got his first look at the guard's of Azkaban, the creature's cloak was like solidified smoke and fluttered ethereally, if such a demon could be described as ethereal.

When the cloak fluttered aside it revealed a dark grey skeleton, it looked like flesh had been dried until it covered the bones. The worst part was the skeleton was slightly transparent, which meant Harry got to see what looked like icy blue veins. He didn't dare use his mage sight in case the magic was somehow worse than the beast itself.

Luna was shaking Lupin rather violently but he remained dead to the world, the dementor's cold aura had affected the notice-not and turned it inwards. The notice-not would need to be broken before the man would awaken, which would normally only take Harry a couple of seconds.

Seconds he couldn't afford to lose, he was barely able to keep up with reinforcing the mithril before the dementor could wither it away and get into the compartment.

It had thrust its skeletal hand through the broken window and was grasping at Harry feebly, when Harry had let his hand get too close to the dementor's hand his skin had grown pale. It had felt like burning hot needles were being stuck in his hand, despite the pain Harry felt numbness spread over his hand.

When Harry glanced at his hand and winced at how grey his skin had become, it looked dried and shriveled. Harry didn't know how bad it was but it didn't take a genius to figure out having a grey hand wasn't good, in an attempt to stop it spreading he activated his gauntlet.

Activating the gauntlet was a mistake, the gauntlet spread up his hand but the mithril was icy cold. The Philosopher's Stone glowed brilliantly and spread warmth throughout his body, but it seemed unable to warm up the metal.

The gauntlet did give Harry a surge in power, as if in response to that new power the dementor backed off. Harry let out a sigh in relief only for the dementor to push forward, right as it hit the door it seemed to turn into smoke and phased right through the door.

Harry started hearing faint whispers in his mind, it was as if he was hearing them from a great distance but the closer the dementor drew the louder the voices grew. The dementor stretched out his hand as if to touch his face and Harry reacted on instinct.

Before he could even register what he was doing his gauntleted hand had caught the dementor's arm as a troll's roar and a child's scream filled his mind.

* * *

Luna watched Harry fearfully, when the dementor had entered the compartment she had almost fainted as she watched her mother died over and over again. Harry's cloak then reared up like a king cobra's hood, the cloak seemed to stop the dementor's aura.

With the memories fading Luna was able to get back to waking the professor, she was once again stopped, this time by Harry screaming in pain. Where he had grabbed the dementor's arm his gauntlet had frosted over completely, the red stone was easily the brightest thing on the train and causing a stream of steam which had started to condense on the ceiling.

The mithril itself started to look rusted and jagged, normally Harry's mithril was so smooth Luna had used it as a mirror but now she could barely tell what colour it was. Harry's skin had also started turning pale grey, it ran up his arm like frost and had already reached his elbow.

But while his skin was grey his veins had turned the same red as the stone and glowed fiercely, he looked like some sort of demon and Luna found herself terrified. For the dementor's part it was letting off a sound like a hundred different voices screaming.

Knowing that she couldn't do anything to help Harry directly Luna turned back to the professor and started shaping her magic as Harry had taught her, she was unable to use her magic as freely as her friend but she was able to shape a crude spear of magic. The magic carved into the distorted notice-not and tore it to shreds.

Immediately the professor opened his eyes and sat up, in one quick motion his eyes took in the entire scene and raised his wand at the dementor "Expecto patronum!", a huge wolf like shape tackled the dementor and sent it flying out of the compartment.

With the dementor gone Harry collapsed into a seat, Luna couldn't tell how far the grey had spread as it had gone up into his shirt with the gauntlet stopping just above his elbow. The professor started waving his wand over the boy and muttering spells, silently begging her only friend would be okay Luna sank into her own seat and let her eyes close.

* * *

Harry awoke almost immediately, he was starting to get annoyed at how many times he had been struck unconscious lately and swore to himself he would make sure he would get stronger. He looked around the infirmary carefully, he seemed to be the only person in there, judging by the purple and orange light trickling through the eastern facing windows it was very early in the morning.

As he rose he felt a charm break and a streak of magic flew off towards the headmaster's office, before he had company Harry inspected his arm. His gauntlet must've been deactivated by Dumbledore as he distinctly remembered it trying to heal the dementor's affect when he had fainted, when he looked closer he was alarmed to see all three of his rings missing.

His skin was still incredibly pale even in the warm light and when he touched it with his other hand he flinched at how cold it was, this was quite alarming for Harry as he didn't feel the cold. After poking his arm he confirmed his suspicion, his left arm was completely numb.

Before he could experiment further Dumbledore strode into the infirmary.

"I'm glad to see you are doing better Harry, nobody was quite sure what to expect… suffice to say the last person that physically touched a dementor died shortly after." There was no levity in Dumbledore's voice, there was only wariness and grief.

"Can't say I was sure either, it was only the gauntlet which stopped the worst of it I think."

"Quite, it was fortunate you gave me permission to remove your gauntlet, the mithril remained cold and prevented your recovery. I would suggest checking your mithril over before putting it on again."

Dumbledore left soon after, it was almost four in the morning, after he left Harry went back to sleep. He was woken up later by madam Pomfrey, Harry privately felt he would've preferred to stay asleep although he wasn't brave enough to tell her that.

"Unfortunately, the only thing that can help you is time and… chocolate."

That was how Harry found himself walking into the great hall for breakfast, as he expected almost every student stopped talking and turned to him. He hurried over to where Luna was sitting and started spreading chocolate on toast.

It took several minutes for Harry to get his first visitor, Draco Malfoy sauntered over with a smug grin on his face, before he got close enough to talk Harry rolled his eyes at Luna who smiled blithely.

"Hey Potter! Word is you fainted at the sight of the dementor"

Harry sighed despondently before turning to Malfoy and pulled his sleeve up to reveal his greyed arm.

"This is from where I fought the dementor, for some reason it tried to kill me, as you can tell I lived. I'd like to see how you'd fare against a dementor trying to kiss you… not that anybody, even a dementor, would want to kiss you." Harry said casually, Malfoy had been rather sedated ever since he had been petrified.

It seemed over the summer he had regained his confidence, although Harry noted his comments had lost some of his bite.

* * *

_Glad to say I'm starting to feel better, now that Harry's back at Hogwarts I have lots of ideas. This year will mostly be Harry training and discovering his family's history, as such there will be huge time skips. For a few months now I've been planning Goblet of Fire so I'm mentally hitting the breaks so that I don't rush through this year._

_Early on when writing this story I got a few complaints about how slow this story is, but considering we are now starting year 3 and chapter 49 (technically this is like the 54th chapter I've uploaded for this story) and the first year anniversary of this story passed 2 weeks ago today. As a belated celebration I wanted to take the time to thank __geekymom, vyoom and as some of the first and most consistent reviewers. Personally I write because I enjoy doing it and sharing it with whoever wants to read it is just a bonus, despite this I do notice and read each and every review._


	50. Remus Lupin

Early the next morning he went into his workshop to begin implementing the ideas he had come up with over the holiday, as the students had a day off today he wouldn't be missed. Even without changing it he was quite proud of his workshop, even if at first glance it looked as if it hadn't changed much since he had first started using it, aside from the shelves now being filled with shiny objects of all sorts of colours.

The first change he made was to rip the old door out, he then delved deep into his own power and started summoning thin sheets of mithril to take the place of the door. By the time he had the general shape he was exhausted, so in order to conserve energy he used his backup mithril core to expand the door so that it was much thicker.

With the taxing part over Harry started shaping the door's ideologies to his will, first he told the door to draw its powers from the castle itself so that it would never run out of magic. He then started weaving the web of notice-nots that would stop the magic in the mithril being detected, he had gotten incredibly lucky by accidentally figuring it out during his first year.

But he then incorporated what he had learned from the mermaids which made it hard for Harry to even pay attention to the door. Next he applied a mix of glamorous and colour changing charms to make the mithril look like the regular door in the off chance somebody saw through the notice-nots.

He then shut the door and started throwing several destructive spells at it, each and every spell was stripped down to its most basic elements and absorbed into the mithril. Even his spear just bounced off the door and his sabre had taken several minutes to leave a mark.

In order to stop spirits and other incorporeal beings he had lined the walls and ceiling with mithril panels. Even though he had used a mithril generator to cover most of the walls, providing enough mithril to start the process had still been tiring. As the mithril spread Harry noticed the magic in the room was being drained just like Azkaban.

After some thought he solved the issue by imbedding several cores throughout the sheets and then telling the sheets to let ambient magic pass straight through. While this meant magic started passing into the room again the ambient magic had been touched by Harry's signature.

The echo of his signature meant Harry had some control over the magic before he even got close to it. This had allowed his senses to grow considerably inside the room, even when he stepped outside he could still feel a faint echo of the room in his subconscious.

He found he could control the air with barely a thought and his magic replenished significantly faster than normal. But while the power might be addictive it meant Harry had almost complete control of the room, after some time experimenting he found that by simply focusing on the mithril he could completely seal the room.

Further experimentation revealed that he could change the ideologies of the panels almost instantaneously, whether this was due to how the room was now permeated with his signature or his own growing power he didn't know.

He laughed out loud when he told the panels on the east wall to apply an expansion charm and move backwards into the magically created space, while he didn't yet trust the magically created space he didn't hesitate to double the size of the room.

By the time he left for dinner his workshop had gained an additional room where he had moved his finished projects which left him more room for his in progress projects, along with a new lounge area complete with a huge desk.

The new space was welcome as the mithril ward generator had taken up an entire corner and he and Bathsheda had to move it whenever they wanted to work on it, now it sat proudly in the middle of the main room with lots of room to move around it.

* * *

Harry was able to ignore the other students, their behaviour wasn't too dissimilar to how they normally acted so Harry was used to ignoring them.

He entered the defense room warily, after Lockhart's dreadful attempts at teaching and the complaints he heard against Quirrell, Harry wasn't sure what to expect.

He had mixed feelings when Lupin took them to the staffroom, it was one of the few areas of the school he hadn't been to often. When he realised Lupin intended to reveal their worst fears to the class he was tempted to walk out.

As it was he was curious about what his worst fear actually was, off the top of his head he couldn't think of anything he was truly afraid of. He guessed he was scared of Luna or Dumbledore dying but he didn't stay awake terrified about it.

Before Harry could think of his fear a line had formed, he fought his way near the back of the line so that he would have a bit more time to decide. If he wasn't feeling so anxious he would've enjoyed the atmosphere Lupin had set up, the music helped calm the students and the bright room lessened the impact of their fears.

Due to the atmosphere the line moved quickly with each student dispelling their boggart with ease, which meant Harry was pushed in front of the creature. The boggart started swirling, Harry thought he saw the cloak of a dementor briefly form before turning back into dust.

Eventually the boggart settled into… himself, Harry cocked his head to the side and looked at himself curiously. Boggart Harry copied his movement which gave Harry time to play spot the difference. The other Harry was slightly taller, his hair was shorter than he normally wore it letting the scar be easily seen.

He also seemed more muscled and confident, then Harry saw his eyes. The boggart's eyes were pure mithril silver, following the eyes the other Harry's veins were the same silver and Harry could feel the power radiating off the dementor.

"Is… is this meant to be scary?" Harry asked slowly, he could tell the class had gone silent behind him and even Lupin seemed on edge. The boggart didn't answer, Harry wasn't even sure it _could_ talk, but he did grin creepily.

The other Harry withdrew a sword that looked similar to Godric Gryffindor's sword except Harry could tell he had made that sword himself. Harry prepared himself for the boggart to attack him, only for the boggart to turn the sword on itself.

There was no blood but Harry could feel the echo of magic rapidly fade from the other Harry until there was nothing left, Harry found himself backing off. It had never occurred to him that he could lose his magic, but now that he had it thrust in his face it terrified him.

Harry tried to think of a way to make it funny but he drew a blank, with the loss of magic the mithril within the other Harry's body started vanishing making it look like his body was deflating. Thinking as fast as he could Harry threw a flame curse which forced the boggart to dive to the side, as it rolled it broke Harry out of his fear.

He knew he would rather die than lose his magic but this boggart was just a reflection of something he would never do, he still didn't know how he could make it funny, but he wouldn't let the boggart scare him. He stared at what was left of the boggart's eyes and tried his best to stare it down, the boggart ungainly stood up and started pointing his sword at him.

After barely a cursory glance at the sword he waved his hand dismissively which disarmed it, the sword vanished into dust after only a few feet. Harry felt he could feel a flicker of confusion from the boggart.

'If doing the smart thing doesn't work, try brute force' Harry thought dryly, he formed the Riddikulus spell and put as much power into it as possible. He then launched it at the boggart which seemed to rip its form to shreds and return it to it's dusty form.

"Well done Harry, very good indeed. Notice class, how if you can't think of a way to make you fear funny, raw power works just as well… Assuming you have the power to spare that is."

Harry appreciated Remus's comment, it made it look like Harry had known what he was doing. It also drew the classes attention back to the professor and boggart which gave time for Harry to compose himself.

* * *

"Harry, a word please" Lupin asked, Harry had been able to hide in the back of the room as the last few students defeated their boggart. The professor waited until the last students had left before leaning on a desk near Harry.

"Are you okay?" Lupin asked Harry softly "Sometimes we don't always want our fears to be shown, if you need to talk to anyone you can always talk to us teachers."

Harry wondered what Lupin was talking about before he realised that to anyone who didn't have magesight his boggart looked like he was terrified of killing himself. "Ohh, no I'm scared of losing my magic… not dying. I thought it might've been a dementor but while I found it frightening I know a way to deal with dementors."

"Ah, I get the feeling you're used to solving your problems with magic? Professor Dumbledore mentioned you've been using magic for a long time, it's understandable that you would fear losing your magic." Professor Lupin gave off the air of understanding although Harry suspected he couldn't comprehend just how important his magic was to him.

* * *

"Mr. Longbottom will be the death of me." Snape muttered angrily as he stormed into his office, having gotten used to his outbursts Harry took a leaf out of the professor's book and raised an eyebrow questioning.

"The boy was _meant_ to make a finger nail reducing potion, by some stretch of logic us mortals can never hope to achieve he added salamander spines to the potion while it was on the fire."

"How did he even get them? You can't buy them without an adult present and he can't have gotten them from your private store." Salamander spines were extremely explosive, so much so that they would react the moment they reached 30 degrees Celsius. Despite this they were an integral part of strength and fire-repellent potions, when properly brewed into a potion.

"I have no idea, what I do know is that after I gathered what was left of his potion it would make the drinker's skin as tough as nails. Of course I needed to scrape this potion off the walls as the resulting explosion destroyed the cauldron and threw Mr. Longbottom into the potion behind him." Snape said bitterly

Harry grimaced and went back to his meditation, he needed to clear his mind before Snape tried to penetrate it before they would go onto whatever Snape had planned. After he had developed a good enough shield to consistently withhold Snape they had started devoting part of their lesson onto other areas of study.

So far he had been learning how to modify and create potions and spells, while Harry had already done his own variation of spell modification it took a lot of energy. Snape was teaching him how to modify existing spells to better serve him, without wasting magic.

"Right, very well then, prepare yourself Potter." Harry barely had time to react before he felt Snape's magic launch over the desk and into his eyes, but before the magic could hit his occlumency shields the magic just _stopped_.

"Impressive, you've made good progress in your shields over the summer… In fact I doubt even the dark lord has shields as strong." Snape sounded genuinely impressed which was a rare occasion for him, Harry would've been proud if it had actually been his shields that had stopped him.

"I'm sorry sir but your magic didn't hit my shields… I thought you just stopped the probe before it could reach me, I didn't feel a thing."

Snape lowered his eyebrows thoughtfully before sending a much stronger probe, like before it stopped just before it could reach Harry. After instruction Harry to move to the side he launched yet another probe which met the exact same fate.

"Very strange… Did anything happen to you, or more specifically your mind, since our last meeting?" Snape asked curiously, their last meeting had been before Harry had gone into the chamber so he had several weeks to go through.

"Well… Obviously there was the dementor, although now I think of it the dementor barely had any effect on me. There was the trip to Azkaban, the Caribbean sea creature, then the mermaids. I think the only other thing would be the chamber… Oh, I had to use mithrilium to protect myself from the Basilisk's stare. That's probably it!"

"Mithrilium?" Snape raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar name which reminded Harry he hadn't been meaning to tell Snape his secret.

"Err, yeah. It's this type of metal I can summon that can do almost anything I can think of, in the chamber I was desperate and made the mithril form inside my head and luckily it remained liquid rather than go solid." Harry said sheepishly

"So it's this 'mithril' that's protecting you? That is certainly a unique approach to protecting your mind, but as I've never even heard of anything like this I have no way of penetrating it. Congratulations Mr. Potter, it seems that you've accidentally made the perfect mental defense." Harry could see Snape was thinking and he didn't have to wait long to find out what.

"So this mithril, I assume Professor Babbling is helping you use it? If you wouldn't mind, I think I would like to join in, while I can see why a runes teacher would be useful in this. However this power doesn't seem to be limited to what runes are capable of, if your mithrilium can protect your mind perhaps it can also improve your mind."

Harry spent the rest of their meeting filling in Snape on what his mithril was capable of, he also showed off several of his gadgets although he kept the gauntlet a secret.

"You have left me much to think about… but before you go I have something for you to think on. It is time you started work on harder potions, such as Wolfsbane. As I am required to brew Wolfsbane this year so you will have plenty of samples to work with, your task will be to see if you can enhance the potion. This can either be by improving the taste of the potion, increasing it's duration or even preventing the transformation entirely."

* * *

That night Harry had snuck into the restricted section and retrieved several books on werewolves and wolfsbane, he then went back to his improved workshop where he wouldn't be disturbed.

He settled into the lounge area and spread out the books over the desk, he quickly found the recipe for the Wolfsbane potion. He remembered talking to Hermione about the potion but had never bothered to look up how to actually make it.

Unsurprisingly aconite, or wolfsbane, was the main component of the potion with most of the other ingredients simply neutralising the poison. Possibly the most dangerous but crucial element was the dementor's ash, when too many dementors stayed somewhere for a long stretch of time they sometimes managed to freeze the air around them into an ash-like substance.

Direct exposure to dementor's ash gave off an effect similar to that of a dementor, which was one of the reasons it was a highly controlled substance. In the wolfsbane potion the ash channeled the idea of aconite straight to the werewolf's mind, it was theorized this scared the wolf part so much it refused to take control of the body.

It was also the ash which made the potion give off the blue smoke and attributed to the terrible taste, sweeteners like sugar negated the effect of the ash making the potion useless. The problem was the potion needed to be drunk everyday for the week leading up to full moon, even missing a dosage for a single day would leave the ash too weak to properly affect the wolf.

The ash also had a negative effect on the body, which would make the werewolf weak and sickly during the course of the week as their body tried to repel the ash and aconite combination. This was in direct contrast to feral werewolves who actually grew stronger during the run up to the full moon.

Idly running through possible combinations of ingredients that might enhance the potion, Harry started reading through various attempts to modify the potion. As the potion had such extreme ingredients anyway attempts to add lesser ingredients either did nothing of note or upset the balance and made the potion deadly.

For a laugh he wondered what would happen if he added the salamander spines Neville had added to his own potion, at first he assumed it would just explode the potion but then realised if they added powdered spines and dementor's ash together in a 1-to-1 ratio the cold of the ash would prevent the spines exploding.

As salamander spines were extremely reactive they would make the potion much more potent. It would also make the potion almost impossible to buy as while salamander spines weren't a controlled substance like dementor's ash, they were still very expensive.

After making sure he had recorded his ideas he made a note to visit Snape in the morning before crawling into bed in the hope that when he awoke the next day the students would go back to normal

* * *

_Over here in England we just had an exceptionally hot week, which at least where I live is nearly unheard of. Turns out writing is much harder when all you can think of is the heat._

_I feel I should say Harry's workshop isn't going to be a replacement for the room of requirement, in a sense he is cheating by using his mithril. Unlike the room Harry's workshop is limited to what he starts with, he can expand the room to be bigger and add extra 'rooms' that way but he can't make the workshop lead to another part of the castle._

_Now, personally I really dislike having to explain stuff like this when it should be in the story, which is why I often try to include the explanations at a future point. With a professional published book often the entire story will be finished with several people having read over it to make sure it makes sense._

_In fanfiction however you are often limited to releasing individual chapters and while I like making you readers ask questions I also don't want to cause any confusion. The compromise I make is when I feel I have properly answered a question in a future chapter I go back and edit the notes so that any new reader gets to read the answer in the context of the story and not by me straight up explaining it._

_As such it means people reading this while I'm still writing don't get the 'full experience', however they do get to influence the story and provide motivation._

_Finally in unrelated news the Google Doc I use to write this story had now reached __150713 words, which means it can get extremely laggy at times which is great, I dread to think how slow it will be by the time I finish unless I start writing on a second doc._


	51. The Grim

A few days later Harry was called into Dumbledore's office, when he reached the gargoyle he swore it smirked at him. As Dumbledore hadn't bothered to tell him the password Harry decided to break in again.

He waved his hand in front of the gargoyle and let his magic scan the door. 'He's improved his security' Harry thought smugly 'But the question is it will it be good enough?' Dumbledore had enchanted the lock so that whatever was said to the gargoyle would be checked by something in his office, that object would then send down a coded signal to open the office.

This meant Harry couldn't just trick the gargoyle to move by making it think he had entered the password, what he _could_ do however was make the gargoyle move manually and just bypass the password.

One overpowered levitation charm later and he was inside the stairwell, he could give in and try and guess the password or just get Dumbledore to let him in... or he could double down and get in by himself. He pointed his wand up at the ceiling and cast a strong summoning charm, the charm started pulling him upwards until he reached the doorway.

He needed to grab hold of the door frame to stop himself falling back down, so when he managed to open the door his entrance was a rather embarrassing stumble. Fortunately he recovered his balance quickly which gave him enough time to see Dumbledore dispel an image of the stairwell, which assumed had been a live feed.

"Very impressive, although perhaps in the future it might be more prudent to just ask to be let in? Just because you _can_ use magic to get in doesn't mean you should use it for everything." Dumbledore said knowingly "But your methods of entering my office aside, I did have a reason for calling you up here, please have a seat."

Dumbledore waited until Harry sat down before continuing "Sherbet lemon? Well as you know several students missed lessons due to the attacks, I could move them down a year but that means they'll just be wasting more time going over subjects they've already covered.

"So my solution was to get them a private tutor to let them catch up on what they missed while staying with their year group. Obviously they needed a tutor that knew the subject material and had the time to help them. My choice was obvious."

Harry wondered who Dumbledore was talking about before he saw Dumbledore's expression "You… want _me_ to teach them?" Harry asked, astonished.

"Only if you want to, I know you were concerned you would find this year too easy. If I recall correctly you were tutoring Mr. Creevey before he got attacked anyway."

"Fine, I'll do it… but only if the students behave, if they don't want to learn I'm not going to waste my time on them."

* * *

Harry looked around his new classroom warily. He knew Colin and Justin well and would've helped them anyway, he had worked with Neville and knew he would put the work in. It was Draco and the Hufflepuff boy he distrusted, Draco hadn't stopped sneering ever since he had stepped in and Jackson had looked at Harry disdainfully before turning away.

He had to admit to himself that as Jackson was two years ahead, his attitude wasn't unjustified. Fortunately the teachers had been kind enough to supply him a general list of lessons from the first attack onwards, it would be up to him to pick out what lessons to cover.

"Right everyone, I have the list of lessons here and I think the first thing we should do is find out what lessons you missed and any you want to go over again and we can go from there?"

"This is so stupid" Jackson scoffed "I don't need a third year to tell me how to study."

"Fine, then leave" Harry replied coldly, here was confirmation that he had been right, the students weren't going to put the work in and were just going to waste his time. Deciding to mock him he said "Feel free to tell me how you got on at the end of the year"

This had Jackson freezing at the door and turning to glare at Harry "You think you know more than me?" He asked through gritted teeth

"Yes, frankly I'm surprised you managed to reach fifth year if this is the sort of effort you put into your learning."

Jackson obviously didn't like that as he started marching towards Harry with his wand drawn, as Harry had expected that response his wand had been drawn before he even opened his mouth so he just glared at Jackson as menacing as he could.

"Prove it, cast every spell on that piece of paper." Jackson growled.

Harry barely needed to glance at the list of spells as he had made sure he could cast each and every one the night before, therefore he simply handed the list to Jackson and moved to the middle of the classroom to begin the gauntlet of spells.

"The first spell is Protego, the wand movement is a circle starting at the top and ending at the top finished by a flick straight down. When done correctly you should have a circular shield in front of you, often blue or silver, that can stop spells for as long as you can hold it.

"Next is Ascendio, this wand movement is a curved line downwards at the object you want to move then a sharp flick up. This spell will send an object flying straight upwards, if cast incorrectly it will instead target the closest object which is inevitably the caster and send them flying up instead.

"Bombarda, curved line to the side then a straight line back to the beginning, causes a controlled explosion wherever you aim. Colovaria, diagonal slash across the target, changes the colour of that object. Diffindo, small loop then a hard slash in whatever direction you want a cut to appear, basic cutter spell which will work on most materials although accuracy varies."

Harry ran through over two dozen charms and hexes, after the first few spells Jackson had lost his smug look, after the tenth he had looked at Harry slightly fearfully. While he was giving each spell the least amount of power possible, even a dozen low powered spells were still a drain on anyone's magic, as such he had started to draw upon his mithril supply a while ago.

But as none of the other students knew he was cheating, they incorrectly assumed he had enough raw power to just slug through several fourth year spells in a row.

"Now any more useless questions or can I get on with getting you lot caught up on what you missed like I was told to?" Harry asked sarcastically, despite his cocky ulterior inside he was thankful he had planned for somebody to question his knowledge of the spells and had loaded himself with mithril accordingly.

* * *

Harry glared at Dippet's book angrily, he had just unlocked the third conditional enchantment. Dumbledore had obviously had a laugh while doing it as Harry had needed to go to the astronomy tower at midnight and say the word "please". Harry had tried brute forcing the conditional the same way he had broken the first two but he had been unsuccessful.

Now that he had unlocked it he wasn't sure if it was worth it, the book had translated itself into what Harry thought was French and he couldn't find a way to turn it back into English. In order to break through this magic Harry would need to properly learn Loquela magick, which meant asking Nicolas for help.

Verbarn and Loquela were twins in that they acted similarly. As Nicolas had said in a more recent lesson where they had gone over past material

"Any spell with an incantation, regardless of what language it is spoken in, starts as Verbarn magick. After the magick has determined the intent of the spell it will use the other families to apply that intent upon the world.

"Loquela takes magical intent and translates it into a language and method the caster can understand. For instance, the translation charms interpreters use when exploring Egyptian tombs. When the interpreter casts the charm it uses Verbarn magic to form the intent, then Loquela uses that intent to turn all written words nearby into magical intent, then it translates the intent into the caster's primary language."

Despite how complex it sounded when broken down, in practice the charm was cast just like any other. In order for Harry to translate the book back into English he would need to learn to use Loquela in its pure form as the book somehow resisted Verbarn magick.

Harry already had some experience working in pure magic as his mithril worked best when he programmed the ideologies with magical intent rather than words. It was extremely hard to think in terms of ideas rather than words and Harry didn't even know where to start trying to apply that to casting magic.

There were other benefits to learning how to cast magic in other magick families as well of course, Nicolas had started teaching Harry a spell referred to as 'Divine Shield' and as the name suggested it would block most divine magick. But any magic that wasn't from the divine family would pass right through the shield.

Likewise divine magic would pass right through a protego as that was Verbarn magick. The various magick families rarely interacted with each other which meant it was important to have a defense for every magick family, Fiendfyre was widely feared because as divine magick it could only be blocked by a divine shield.

For now Harry had no idea how to use Loquela magick so he was stuck using an old fashioned French to English dictionary. The problem was that while the dictionary may help Harry translate the book into English it wouldn't help him translate the intent of the French magic.

* * *

"Focus, Potter! If you want to truly see how much power you possess you need to _focus_" Snape snapped impatiently, the two had been sat on the astronomy tower for over an hour and had made no progress. If Harry opened his eyes he knew he would see Snape sat cross legged barely a few feet from him.

He knew Bathsheda was nearby but he didn't know where. After he had closed his eyes she had placed a mithril plate near Harry, his task was out where it was by using his connection to the mithril. With a sigh Harry started to spread out his magic to find it's signature only to have Snape slap it back.

"Do you intend to send your magic across Britain to find your mithril?" He asked sarcastically

"But the plate is only a few feet away, I don't need to send my magic far" Harry whined.

"Today maybe, but what about tomorrow? What about in a year's time when you need to find your mithril in France!" Snape said waspishly, Harry knew the man had a point but it was irritating to know he had the ability to find the plate in seconds but was being denied.

Harry knew he was frowning but he couldn't bring himself to care. Snape had obviously noticed as he audibly sighed before continuing in a less heated voice.

"You told me that when you're in your _workshop_ you can sense everything that happens within the room, even modify mithril without touching it correct? Just try and copy that effect here."

"But the only reason I can do that there is because the magic in the air has my signature!" Harry argued

"How do you know? This is your chance to prove your room is a fluke and not just a shortcut to a power you can use."

Sighing once more Harry rained in his thoughts, on a whim he activated his mage sight so that he could see if the plate was in front of him. As he had learned some time ago his mage sight wasn't physical sight, but despite this he had fooled himself into thinking that shutting his eyes would stop his mage sight.

As magic worked on belief and intent, his belief that the mage sight would stop ensured that his sight _did_ stop. This became a feedback loop as he was given evidence his belief was true, it was only when Dumbledore had challenged him on the issue that he had opened his eyes.

He easily recognised Snape's dark blue signature, which easily stood out from Hogwarts bright magic. While at first glance Hogwarts magic appeared to be a blinding white, a closer inspection revealed it was actually a conglomeration of many different magical signatures.

Carefully he rotated his 'sight' around him like the beam of a lighthouse, but while he identified Bathsheda's magic he couldn't find the green of his mithril.

"Using your mage sight is cheating Potter, fortunately we took this into account." Snape said scornfully.

Harry had one more trick up his sleeve however, he turned his magesight inwards and told it to find his signature. He suspected it was only the mithrilium in his head which let him do it, which corresponded with his increased occlumency and the general range and power of his mage sight normally.

Like a radar he swept his magical sight around him, expect now it seemed like he was floating in an empty void. It wasn't black for that would just be another colour for magic, this was the absence of all magic. Even Privet Drive had partial atmospheric magic which had meant his vision had never truly failed.

Then slowly that void was filled with flicks of green, first he glanced down at his body and two rings which glowed brightly. His gauntlet looked strange when he only saw his green, the ring looked much smaller without the red of Voldemort at the edges or the coating of the basilisk's poisonous green.

The only indication of the Philosopher's Stone was the occasional flickers of green magic where the magic of the Stone met the mithril.

After another sweep of his sight he identified a veiled green plate at his 9 o'clock, he was going to point at it to show he had beaten Snape's challenge when his sight did another sweep. A bit to his right was a small box of green, at first he didn't know what it was as it hadn't been there before.

It was only as more tiny dots of green started appearing did it occur to him he was seeing the outer walls of his workshop, two floors below and far to the right. He concentrated more and carefully pushed his sight into the room, almost immediately he snapped his eyes open and it was as if he was within his workshop.

His sight wasn't that of a human, he could see almost fully around him and he felt nauseous just looking at it. He then sensed the mithrilium in his mind adapting to the situation and suddenly he found he could make sense of the chaos.

While he could now understand what he was seeing, he was still struggling to believe. He tried to move forward only to realise he had no body to move, looking at the couch cautious he pushed his sight into the couch and suddenly his sight shifted.

When he regained vision he cheered mentally as he realised he was now looking at his room from the perspective of his couch. It occurred to him that as the couch didn't have eyes he shouldn't be able to see but he slapped the thought away, when it came to his mithril sometimes logic just couldn't be applied.

He was perfectly happy to spend several minutes flitting around his workshop when he felt a sharp sting in his shoulder, in reflex he looked down to see what had struck him only to remember he currently didn't _have_ a shoulder. With a great deal of effort he pulled his sight out of the room and back to his body, it was with some concern he realised it took more effort to get out than it had to get in.

"Harry!" Snape said with concern, Harry slowly opened his eyelids and blinked wearily. It felt weird to be using his eyes when he had been seeing differently, he bitterly compared his vision from his eyes compared to the crystal clear vision of his mithril. True the vision from the mithril had been purely magical and all sense of colour had been in relation to the magical signatures within the room but he had seen objects both close and far away in perfect detail.

"I did it!" Harry said excitedly "I detected my mithril, even the workshop down below! But when I pushed my mage sight into the room it was like I was seeing it _as _the room!"

"I didn't detect your magical intent leaving your body… How far could you 'see'?" Snape asked excitedly

"Never mind that, are you okay Harry? It was like you were in a trance or something, you didn't respond to are calls and even shaking you did nothing, you were like that for several minutes." Bathsheda said worriedly.

Harry was going to tell her he was fine but the moment he opened his mouth a huge yawn escaped him and his eyes started closing by themselves. He gave Bathsheda a thumbs up just before collapsing onto the tower floor.

* * *

Harry's dreams that night were strange, at first he was floating in his workshop, various pieces of mithril floated and formed around him. They came together and formed incredibly complex artifacts, only to then break apart and rejoin the other pieces of mithril.

It was power and control like he had never imagined before, it was as if the mithril knew what he wanted, seconds before he could even knew it himself. He felt unstoppable but still he desired more, before him his mithril formed into the shape of a ring.

Atop the ring was a black square gem with the symbol of the deathly Hallows painted in white on top. Next to the ring the elder wand formed, energy crackling between the knots in the wand. Finally a sheet spread out and took the shape of the invisibility cloak.

Despite their appearance Harry knew it was impossible to copy the true powers of the hallows, even in a dream his mithril wasn't capable of mimicking the impossible paradoxical nature of them.

But then he was pulled away from his workshop, he was flying over open countryside with the wind whipping at his face. He hated the feeling and willed it away, to his surprise the feeling vanished.

As time dragged on he grew bored and wondered how long this would take, eventually he slowed down and he took the time to look around. With some alarm he recognised the location, he had arrived back at Azkaban.

He had no control as he walked to the heart of Azkaban, he crouched and pressed his hand against the mithril. Ice started forming over his hand but he pushed his magic out, slowly his green overtook the cold magic of Azkaban.

As his magic took over the cold and dark of Azkaban faded, Harry didn't know where the prisoners had gone but at the same time the thought seemed irrelevant. Eventually it seemed like the entire prison was glowing green except for one lone source of darkness many floors below.

The floor then gave way beneath him and he found himself falling into a void that shouldn't exist. The impact with the floor should've killed him but being a dream he just got to his feet and looked around, the room he found himself in was either extremely large or very small, it was so dark he couldn't tell.

What he could tell was he was at the foot of a gigantic throne, the throne itself was just a slab of rock shaped into a chair. But it was the being sat on the throne which drew his attention, at first it looked like a huge black dog with glowing red eyes. But then he morphed into a huge humanoid figure, he was impossibly huge and was made entirely out of pure black magic.

**"_You are reaching for magic far beyond you, child, you are not worthy of the powers you seek. Yield before you draw attention from those that have slumbered for many of your years."_**

The being's voice was eerily similar to the dementors scream, the voice echoed so that Harry heard each word many times. But the voice wasn't restrained to his ears, it also echoed within his head.

Harry had thought his mental defenses were impenetrable but the being plowed through them like they were paper. Despite his best efforts to reject the being, his own powers were no match for the raw strength of the attacker.

**"_For better or for worse you have gained my personal attention, I would find it inconvenient for you to enter my realm before you have shown your true potential. Now awake and think upon my words."_**

* * *

When Harry awoke, he was struck with a huge headache. Whether that was because of his dream or pushing his consciousness into his mithril he couldn't tell.

He noticed he was in his workshop bed, which meant somebody must've carried him in. A levitation charm would've failed after encountering the magic of the room, he and Bathsheda were working on a way to allow other people to use their own magic within the workshop but so far had no success.

A quick look at the time revealed it was close to lunch time, it was just fortunate he didn't have any lessons that morning. He was surprised to see Bathsheda sitting at the table etching runes into a stone, from the angle he was standing he couldn't see what she was writing.

Having known her for over two years now he knew her various expressions, from the way her tongue was sticking out slightly he could tell she was struggling with a problem. From where she was sitting she easily saw him enter and quickly set down her tools.

Harry couldn't help smiling when he noticed she was using the mithril tools he had gifted her some time ago. The main part of the present was the chisel, rune maker's chisel set was more than just a stone mason's chisel.

It needed to channel its user's magic like a wand, on top of that it needed to be able to carve into various materials. Unlike a wand the chisel couldn't be made out of wood, high end rune maker chisels were often made out of petrified wood like the hilt of Harry's wand.

The problem was that often made them extremely expensive and didn't last long. Stone and some metals were great stores of magic, which was why they were used to hold runes and enchantments in the first place. However this meant magic didn't flow through them, regardless of the intent of magic passed into stone the intent that came out would always be the same.

As with most magic, there was an exact opposite to the nature of stone, wood was being this reverse. Wood was great for wands as it completely avoided the intent of magic, instead it wrapped its own supply of magic around the magic. This meant any magic that went into enchanted wood would come out stronger, which was why wands were made out of wood.

But this meant wood couldn't hold an enchantment, any runes scribed into wood would fade over time. This also meant wood could never store magic for any length of time as magic rolled in and out of the wood like waves, taking any extra magic with it.

Petrified wood was a middle ground that didn't store as much magic as stone and didn't wrap as much magic over a spell. But it could both store and channel magic which made it near perfect for rune makers, but this also left the chisels fragile and an incorrect strike could shatter it.

Harry had solved this with his mithril. While it was far worse at channelling magic compared to petrified wood, it was also a great store of magic and completely indestructible. When combined with the ideology to remain razor sharp at all times the mithril chisel could carve extremely complex patterns into the toughest of stone.

The fact it struggled to channel raw input was also obsolete considering Bathsheda knew enough to channel her own intent into the mithril, which then used its own power to fuel the rune. She couldn't program mithril anywhere near as efficiently as Harry could, as she had told him "I just _can't_ make my mind work that way."

As such Harry had needed to program the chisel to act like a wand and interpret her intent from her mind. Getting the mithril to gather intent from her surface thoughts hadn't been easy but eventually he had gotten it to work after much trial and error.

Now as long as she had a clear image of what she wanted her rune to do when she powered the chisel it could provide the intent continuously, which meant she could focus on actually cutting out the rune.

"Good morning" Bathsheda said warmly, cutting him out of his thoughts. Judging by her smirk she knew she had just brought him back to present time. "Severus wants to '_debrief you of what happened last night_' so he's going to meet us in my office after our lesson. As such I'm going to hold back on finding out what happened last night."

"Cool… Out of interest what happened after I fell asleep?"

"Well after we figured out you were fine, good job scaring me to death with that bloody thumbs up by the way, Severus picked you up and carried you here. He didn't want to use magic on you in case you somehow reacted negatively, he was quite cute actually."

"Huh, shame I missed that. Anyway I'm off to get some breakfast, I'll see you for a lesson I guess."

"It's lunch time!" She called after him teasingly, it had become a sort of game for them to argue over what meal it was. Harry preferred to wake up around lunch time and referred to his first meal as breakfast regardless of how late it was, Bathsheda in turn was determined to get him to slip up and call the meal its proper name.

* * *

"Welcome, my children… In this room you shall explore the noble art of _Divination!_" The woman stood in front of the room with her arms spread wide, reminding Harry of a preacher, her exuberance as she described her subject definitely did nothing to dispel that image.

"In this room, you shall discover if you possess the Sight. I am Professor Trelawney and together we shall cast ourselves into the future. This term, we'll focus on Tasseomancy, the art of reading tea leaves so please, take the cup of the person sitting opposite you."

Harry turned and saw he was sitting opposite Ron Weasley, the boy gave a lopsided grin that Harry took to mean "Are you okay with me being here", Harry gave a slight nod and passed his own cup over which saw Ron relax considerably.

"What do you see? The truth lies buried like a sentence deep within a book, waiting to be read. But first, you must broaden your minds… First, you must look _beyond_." Before he had entered the wizarding world Harry would've scoffed at such talk, but now with three years of magical experience under his belt he gave the subject the benefit of the doubt.

By the expressions on most of the student's faces they didn't believe the woman and were just playing along, but Harry couldn't help drawing parallels between what Trelawney was saying and how he had moved his consciousness into his mithril the night before.

He let his mind rest as he picked up Ron's cup and started trying to pick out images in the tea leaves. His mage sight easily picked up the subtle flecks of Ron's magic within the leaves, as he stared he swore he saw the flecks move slightly.

When he leaned back and let his normal vision overlay his mage sight he saw a pattern emerge, at first he thought he saw the blade of a spear but upon turning the cup slightly the spear turned into two crooked lines. He turned the cup back slowly and managed to catch the magic moving subtly, when he finished turning the cup the leaves had gone back into a spear.

"First you have the spear… which means you will champion a belief or idea… Next comes the crooked lines, which means you have a tough path to follow, possible in relation to championing a belief. Finally you have the chain wrapped around the sun, which means responsibility and either power or new beginnings… Basically you're going to go through a tough time and become responsible for new beginnings." Harry told Ron slowly, he kept having to scan through the book for the meaning of the symbols.

When he looked up at the boy he thought he saw a flicker of fear before he grinned, Harry couldn't help grinning back at the ridiculousness of his prediction. Unseen by the pair of them Trelawney had snuck up on them and startled them from their levity.

"A fate to be proud of to be sure, although grave times approach you, my dear." Trelawny told Ron sagely. "Now, look at the cup. Tell me what you see."

Ron fumbled with the cup and it looked like he was going to hand it to the professor before pulling it closer to him. "Oh, yeah. Um… Well, Harry's got sort of a wonky cross. That's trials and suffering and that there could be the sun and that's happiness. So... you're gonna suffer, but you're gonna be... happy about it."

Harry shrugged at Ron's incredulous look, he felt he had suffered a lot already and so far he had never felt happy to have suffered. Professor Trelawney apparently shared his disbelief as she waved her hands impatiently at the cup.

"Give me the cup… Oh, my dear boy. My dear... you have the _Grim_."

* * *

_I had planned to have this chapter carry all the way to the end of the day, but I woke up this morning and just had no inspiration. I will also take the time to restate that this version of Harry is already incredibly powerful, technically he could just send a mithril bird straight to Voldemort and have it blow up since he has Voldemort's signature._

_But 2 reasons why he doesn't do this; 1. It would be bad for the plot and 2. This version of Harry just wants to learn magic, he doesn't want to fight a war (yet). Despite this Voldemort still wouldn't survive a straight up fight against Harry since Harry is immortal through both the Philosopher's Stone, Cloak and mithril, as such Harry could just keep fighting Voldemort until Tom just runs out of energy._

_To counter this I currently don't see Voldemort as the final boss, the shadowy being from the dream is a possible tie into future villains. In other news I've started reading '_Deal with a Devil' _by Silently Watches and it is really good, it is a crossover between Harry Potter and Dresden Files and despite being the first story I've ever read about Dresden Files I haven't felt lost the entire time._


	52. Of silver rabbits and black dogs

Harry mulled over Trelawney's prediction, who had looked at the cup himself and had seen the exact same images. Of course he could've tricked himself into seeing what he expected but he doubted it, the images had been too clear for it to be a coincidence.

When he had looked up the grim in his book of 'Unfogging the future' he recognised the crude drawing of the grim, it was exactly the same as the dog he had seen in his dream. Harry was unsurprised to find it was seen as an omen of death, given his past experiences it made sense a dog had caused the death of many wizards.

Having sat down in his seat for transfiguration he barely paid the cat on the desk a glance. While he didn't fear death, he had no desire _to_ die. As such his mind was running through several spells and curses that could stop an animal like the grim.

After remembering that the grim was meant to be a spirit and not physical so started adding spells that affected spirits, mastering the divine shield went to the top of his list. If anything was going to use divine magic, Harry would place high odds of the being from his dream using such magic against him.

He didn't miss the furtive looks his classmates kept throwing his way, looks he largely ignored. They swapped from concerned about him dying to calling for his death as if they were flavours of ice cream and just expected him to dance to their tune.

But while he didn't miss the looks, he almost missed Professor McGonagall's lecture on animagi. While he enjoyed the subject of transfiguration, it wouldn't serve him well against magical foes, some like Dumbledore had enough experience and power to use 'combat transfiguration'.

The main reason why transfiguration was generally a poor choice in combat was essentially the difference between transfiguration and alchemical transmutation. With transfiguration you made an object act like something else, using magic as the medium. Transmutation made an object into something else, using both a medium and magic as the power source.

But both methods used up a lot of magic by themselves, if you ignored the magical resistance of distance transfiguration was the more 'cost effective' option. However the transfiguration would only hold for as long as the magic held, so even against somebody inexperienced like Harry who could manipulate magic at close range, transfiguration was just a waste of magic.

Transmutation couldn't be 'undone', once it changed it was stuck as it was unless somebody else came along and decided to transfigure or transmute the object. This meant that in battle if Dumbledore transmuted a wall to buy time, the only way for an attacker to dispel that wall was to use their own magic to destroy it.

But no matter how advanced the defender was, the magic it would take to tear down a transmutation was always lower than the magic it had taken to make it. Of course inside a classroom there were many tricks to decrease the magical requirement of transfiguration, such as taking longer to focus on the intent of the spell.

Harry had noticed McGonagall almost always transfigured an object by tapping her wand against her target, he knew from Nicolas that transfiguration could be ranged but the further away the target was the more magic needed to be spent to combat the air resistance. By tapping the target the magic could travel straight from the source to the target with no resistance.

If Harry had to guess, he would say McGonagall barely spent half as much magic teaching compared to something like Flitwick in charms. This was why the rare times transfiguration was used in combat it was always to defend, many students dreamed of transfiguring rubble into animals to attack an opponent.

Even ignoring the myriad of charms and curses that would disable the animals before they even got close enough to threaten a wizard, a simple dispelling charm would be enough to revert the animals back to their original state.

It was only when he remembered reading the word in his first year that he bothered to look up and pay attention. After Tonks had revealed she could theoretically use her powers to turn herself into almost anything in the Caribbean, Harry had gained a new thirst to copy her powers for himself.

As he listened to McGonagall he decided that while being an animagus sounded useful, it would limit him to turning completely into just one animal. What he wanted was to be able to call forth wings or extra limbs, even if just to impress those around him.

He was amazed when McGonagall turned herself into a cat and then back again with a faint pop. He didn't bother wondering where the extra mass went or even how a cat's brain could hold McGonagall's consciousness, just like his mithril sometimes magic just couldn't be explained.

With some humour, Harry noticed the rest of the class either missed the demonstration or found it boring, as if they saw people turn into cats every day, he also noticed that McGonagall seemed rather put out at the lack of reaction too.

"Really, what has gotten into you all today?" She asked bemusedly "Not that it matters, but that's the first time my transformation has not got an applause from a class."

Everyone's heads turned towards Harry again and he found it significantly harder to ignore him now that the entire class had stopped to blatantly stare at him. McGonagall raised an eyebrow at him and he knew it fell to _him_ to explain why everyone else was behaving weirdly.

"We were in divination and were reading the tea leaves -" Harry began, only to be interrupted by McGonagall

"Ah of course. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?"

"Me apparently" Harry found himself bemused at how the class seemed split between staring at him as if waiting for him to keel over and die, or at McGonagall as she displayed an uncanny ability to predict the unexpected… or at least to see a trend that happened every year.

"I see. Then you should know Potter, that Sybil Trelawney has predicted the death of one student per year since she arrived at this school. None of them has died yet, seeing 'death omens' is her favourite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact I don't speak ill of my _colleagues_… Divination is one of the most _imprecise_ branches of magic, I shall not conceal from you that I have a very little patience for it… True seers are very rare and Professor Trelawney…"

She paused again and took another look at the students that were hanging on her every word, Harry could almost see the battle of telling the class what she thought and retaining her professional manner.

"You look in… moderate health Potter, so you will excuse me if I don't let you off homework today. I assure you, that if you die you need not hand it in!" After grimacing down at his grey hand which still hadn't shown any signs of recovery he grinned at McGonagall. She had never gone out of her way to help him like Flitwick or Snape but he liked her none-the-less.

But while he respected the woman, she hadn't seen the magic flowing through the tea leaves. The flakes of his own magic that had formed to warn him of an omen of death, mere hours after dreaming of the exact same omen.

* * *

Runes looked like it was going to be a rather quiet lesson, there were a few Slytherins and Hufflepuffs but the majority of the class were Ravenclaws. There wasn't a single Gryffindor as it seemed the entire year had gone down to Care of Magical Creatures.

Harry had decided to sit in the first row and against the wall, Justin sat nearby and gave Harry a nod which he returned. The rest of the class seemed to be competing on who could sit the furthest away from him, even when Ernie Macmillan sat next to Justin he sat on the far side.

When Bathsheda walked in and surveyed the class she seemed momentarily surprised to see how the students had left a bubble around Harry, she flicked her eyes towards him who simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He had gotten used to the behaviour and there was no point having a teacher force the students to move.

"Welcome class, to the study of ancient runes. Before we begin I should warn you that up until your OWLs this class will focus on merely _translating_ runes, not writing runic structures. This is because an incorrectly written rune can go disastrously wrong."

She then flicked her wand which sent a pale grey stone slab to each student, each slab was about a square foot. When the slab gently dropped onto his table he noticed there was a faint red brand in the corner 'Staunton's Stonework: Providing reliable Runic slabs since 1356. 1 Galleon'.

His mage sight revealed the brand was made of something like wax which had several runes carefully inked in. Faint lines of magic then spread from the brand across the slab, the lines made sure the slab couldn't be copied or repaired with magic and would even self destruct if the brand was tampered with.

"The tablets I have just given you are made of limestone, now as limestone is a soft stone you will find it relatively easy to carve runes into them. But can anyone tell me why we only use soft stone for training? Yes Ms. Greengrass."

"Because harder stone types preserve their magic for longer and also better prevent accidental damage to runes."

"Correct, five points to Slytherin. Now normally you will want your runes to last as long as possible, but when training your runes only need to last long enough to prove they work. As these tablets are both cheap and easy to break, any incorrectly written runes can be easily broken, which lowers the danger of incorrectly drawing a rune."

She then called up the students one by one to pick up a chisel, they were simple reinforced maple tools with various magical cores. Harry ended up with a dragon heartstring core that felt powerful enough to channel his magic properly.

The rest of the lesson focused on first learning then writing mundane runes, such as numbers or connectives. For the magical runes they wouldn't be allowed to write them for some time until Bathsheda was certain they wouldn't make a mistake and blow themselves up.

* * *

Snape and Bathsheda asked him what seemed like hundreds of questions about what had happened the night before, but after seeing how tired he had gotten Snape decided to let Harry go to sleep with the promise they would work on it more the week after, it was only as he was leaving Bathsheda asked her final question.

"When you saw your mithril, did you see the mithril ward generator for Hogwarts?"

Harry was intrigued to note his vow to Bathsheda 'perked up' at her question, it wouldn't stop him lying to her but she would instantly know if he did. It was the first time he had ever actually felt the vow at work since he had sworn to it and was amazed at seeing it with his mage sight almost two years after it had been formed.

It loosely wrapped around his own magic and then shot off towards Bathsheda, normally the vow was completely invisible to him and he had almost forgotten he had even made one. The vow itself was made out of Dumbledore's magic but as it had clearly been made with the Elder Wand it was almost completely unbreakable.

At a slight squeeze from the vow he remembered Bathsheda was waiting for his answer and honestly told her "No, I didn't see it. But as I wasn't looking for it I might've just missed it, I'll have to see if I can find it next time I try it… How are the wards coming along anyway?"

Bathsheda sighed wearily and said "Not well, even with Mr. Flammel's help we decided it would be easier to just completely rewrite the ward scheme. But the only reason some of the wards worked together was because one was centuries old before another was added. Like the Anti-Apparition ward for some reason refuses to work if the human identifier ward is activated."

"Well… What if you split them up, have the Anti-Apparition in one mithril chamber and human identifier in another? We would only need to combine them when the mithril projects them over the school so the runes themselves will never mix."

"That… that's brilliant! But can we do that?"

Harry was ready to continue the discussion long into the night but Snape stepped between them purposely "As _fascinating_ as this is, you two can continue this discussion later. Mr. Potter will need to get to sleep if he wants to be awake for my lesson tomorrow morning and I will not accept tardiness!"

With a sigh Harry collapsed onto his couch after making it to his workshop, he had never gone back to his dormitory after Flitwick had given him permission to avoid it during his second year and nobody had told him to move back so far.

As he was so tired he hadn't even noticed Luna sitting at her table until she looked up from her homework and stared at him intently "You seem preoccupied".

Harry flopped his arm over his face and groaned before replying "Just a busy day really, I had this crazy dream and then in divination my cup predicted the Grim in my future."

He was startled when Luna let out a loud gasp, he was shocked to see how pale she had become and he thought he detected pure terror in her eyes. "But it's fine right? I mean, the Grim isn't actually _real_." Harry said uncertainly.

"Oh no Harry, the grim is very much real, I've seen it… the day my mother died I was playing in the garden and I remember seeing a shadow on the side of the house. The shadow was pitch black but was clearly the shape of a huge dog and had two glowing red eyes. I remembered thinking it was strange as the sun was bright and there was nothing that could've cast that shape of shadow."

Luna swallowed thickly and looked at Harry with glistening eyes "When I turned to see what was casting the shadow my mother screamed and when I looked back the grim was gone… I ran inside to find her and it was horrible, her workshop looked like it had been blown up and she was just laying at the bottom of a wall. She was just barely alive and I held her as she… as she died."

Harry silently walked over to her and held her to him as she cried, he didn't know how long he held her but eventually her sobs stopped and she had fell asleep in his arms.

He carefully picked her up and willed the workshop a replica of his own bed to form in the corner of the room, after tucking her in he made walls form around the corner so she had some privacy. After getting ready for his own bed he looked in on Luna and was sad to see that even asleep she seemed upset.

Drawing upon what magic he had left he formed the rough outline of a rabbit and then slowly added detail to it, once done he made the mithril soft and acted like it had stuffing. Finally he told it to always be comfy and to bring comfort to whoever held it.

Once done he levitated it over to Luna and couldn't help smiling when she subconsciously reached for the rabbit and held it close, slowly Luna started smiling weakly.

That night Harry dreamt of shiny silver rabbits chasing huge black dogs, he watched the game from high above, flying with silent black wings.

* * *

_I'm going to try and keep this note brief, but I mainly wanted to publicly answer a review I got last week. "_Don't you find it nerve-racking that Harry was sorted to ravenclaw but doesn't have a single friends in 1st year ravenclaw while he's friends with Gryffindor. What was point of sorting Harry to ravenclaw."_ Now for a start you are sorted into your house based on personality, not where your friends are. But also the whole point is that Harry doesn't have many friends his age, he grew up almost completely alone and constantly read books, so even when he escapes the Dursleys and gets to Hogwarts he carries on as normal._

_His two main friends, Hermione and Luna, both sought him out first and both are fine just sitting near Harry and reading, somebody like Ron would never understand how they can find that fun. _

_ Now in other news, my plans for the next few upcoming chapters is to start to skip through several months. The last few chapters were set very close together so Harry is only in his 2nd week back at the end of this chapter, but ultimately 3rd year is relatively boring until you get to the end of the year. As such I'm planning on starting to move the focus to other characters, such as Lucius Malfoy, Tom Riddle and Sirius Black. _


	53. Learning from the past

Justin found himself glancing at Harry throughout their potions lesson. He, like the rest of the school, found the boy extremely confusing, for instance when he first arrived three years ago. The boy had regularly denied the truth of the various 'boy-who-lived' stories and yet as a first year knew more magic than most fourth years.

But despite this when Justin had approached the boy Harry seemed friendly enough, but whenever Justin invited Harry anywhere the boy always turned him down. Sensing the boy was something of a loner Justin backed off but tried to keep on friendly terms with the boy.

Harry Potter had the odd ability to scare his year mates, but Justin didn't think it was deliberate, indeed he didn't think Harry knew he was doing it. Ever since he had first arrived Harry was scarily confident, but it wasn't the smug arrogance of Malfoy. Harry had the air of somebody who knew they could do anything they wanted.

When that troll broke in and killed his friend, the other students recovered within a few weeks, the girl only hung out with Harry so he was the only one he noticed her absence. Justin didn't know the girl well either, but he felt he understood Harry and noticed the lack of confidence for several months after.

As the year passed Justin was disappointed when rather than open up more, Harry somehow managed to somehow to close himself off even more. It wasn't hard to work out Harry had taken a classroom for his own, Justin and his friends in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had taken a disused classroom for themselves.

He had tried to follow Harry to his room one day, but had remembered he had agreed to meet with Ernie and forgot about following Harry. The next day he tried again but once more he remembered another pressing matter, the day after that he focused on Harry as hard as he could. Eventually he reached a dusty corridor and had hoped to follow Harry's footprints.

Unfortunately Justin looked down when he realised there were no footprints, he quickly found some sort of sticking charm had been applied to the dust to stop it moving. When he looked back up Harry had completely vanished, he looked in each room but there was no sign anybody had been on the floor for years.

After following Harry one final time, he gave up discovering where Harry went when the boy seemed to vanish after reaching a blank wall. No matter what Justin did he couldn't get the secret passageway to open, fed up and slightly humiliated he gave it up as a bad job.

With the new school year it started out perfectly normal, until the attacks started and Justin ended up petrified for most of the year. It was a surprise when he learned Harry had tried to save him from being petrified and had even fought some sort of beast to stop the attacks continuing.

He was disappointed in how his House acted when they thought Harry was the heir of Slytherin, he wanted to talk to Harry but as the boy had unofficially moved out of their dormitory he hadn't gotten the chance. With their third year he had hoped to talk to Harry again but the boy never moved back.

This meant Justin had to build up the confidence to talk to Harry privately, which proved harder than he expected. It didn't help that the blonde second year girl followed him around everywhere, during lessons Justin couldn't shake his own friends. From what he could gather his friends had been extremely rude to Harry while he was petrified.

* * *

Tom Riddle looked up from the final backlogged Daily Prophet. Despite the fact he had been born almost 70 years ago, from his point of view he finished the ritual to make his first horcrux and 'woke up' as a book in the future.

Luckily for him, Ginevra Weasley was very detailed in her first few diary entries, even giving him the date unprompted. Once he got over his shock at traveling 50 years into the future he started nudging Ginevra into revealing what had happened in recent history and worked backwards.

He was thrilled to learn his plan of adopting the persona of 'Lord Voldemort' had been a huge success, young Ginny seemed to accept the fact somebody with the name Voldemort had just attended Hogwarts. Regrettably his past… or was it future self had had not followed through with the second part of his plan.

While at night he would masquerade as the fearsome Lord Voldemort, at day he had planned to appear as simple Thomas Riddle, a half-blood ministry worker. As his reign of terror grew, Thomas would rise through the ministry. Any that opposed him would become the victim of yet another attack until the path to minister would be open.

As minister he would show the wizarding public he was the best choice by stopping many of Lord Voldemort's plans while slyly passing pro-muggleborn laws. Should Voldemort's forces prove to be the greater force, then Thomas Riddle would fall from the public eye and disappear. Should Thomas put a stop to Voldemort's forces then Voldemort would throw his forces away in a last gamble before fleeing the country, never to return.

No matter who won, the victors would see himself as their natural leader, who would then lead his forces against first the other magical ministries and then take over and rule the muggle world.

The pure-bloods were rich and quick to anger, while the muggle borns were radical and open to change, Tom cared little for either side and merely saw them all as a tool to set himself Lord of the world. This left Tom rather confused when Ginny said she didn't know anyone named Tomas Riddle.

At first he implied to Ginny that he was nothing more than an enchanted diary and used to belong to Thomas when he was at school, he didn't want to ruin his other self's plan by drawing a link between a dark object and Thomas. After finding out that Thomas Riddle never existed in the magical world and that Voldemort was thought to be dead, he realised he could talk semi freely to the Weasley girl without worrying about messing up his other self.

Obviously he knew Voldemort wasn't dead, Tom knew he was a horcrux and as he was clearly alive so too Voldemort lived. As his energy grew he started getting Ginny to reveal more about the world until eventually he was able to temporarily take over Ginny's mind.

His control over Ginny was more akin to the muggle hypnosis and subconscious suggestion compared to something like a confundus or the complete control of the imperius. As such he could get Ginny to move around like a puppet but if he pushed her too hard or got her to do something she abhorred, such as killing another human, then she would break free.

Tom doubted he would be able to get Ginny back into a suggestable state if she broke free forcibly while in book form. If Tom hadn't been forced to learn extreme patients within the orphanage he knew he would've pushed Ginny too much too fast and ruined everything.

It took forever to get Ginny under his control enough that killing chickens and writing with their blood didn't seem so repulsive. Once he knew the girl was ready he got her to awaken the basilisk and sent it after the only victim he could, a week before the attack on Mrs Norris the cat had scratched Ginny when she tried to pet her.

Tom flamed the girl's anger and shock into a deep and irrational hatred, so when he ordered Ginny to tell the basilisk to kill the cat and return to the chamber the girl barely resisted. Every time Tom wanted to launch another attack he had to stoke up the girl's own fear or hatred first, he made the girl jealous of how close Justin Finch-Fletchley was to the Potter boy and made the girl want to get him out of the way.

The girl's mental state started deteriorating rapidly but this only made it easier for Tom to assert his own authority onto the girl. He made her distrust her old friends and family so that she would only go to him for advice, then when he showed his 'ugly' side she tried to avoid him, but inevitably she returned.

So the dance continued until the girl's spirit had been firmly crushed and he could take over her mind for as long as he wanted. In a rush of arrogance he tried to take out the Potter boy in an unplanned attack on his commandeered class room, Tom found it humorous how the boy's private room was only a few doors down from his own secret hideout.

Of course his hideout was under much heavier privacy wards, he foolishly assumed the boy's hideout would have little to no protections judging on how quickly he had gotten through the notice-nots. When the door stood firm to his first explosive curse he assumed it was a weakness in the girl's magic so fired a much darker withering curse.

The curse should've turned the door to dust, instead the spell only rotted part of the door before stopping. Now that he knew it was the door and not his magic he sent a wave of explosive curses, the door was strong but he could see he was starting to make a hole.

Then the spear had flown straight through the hole and went right through his stomach, pooling his magic to the girl's stomach he took refuge in the edge of the protections from his own hideout and started applying what few healing charms he knew.

If it wasn't for the fact the girl had become a temporary horcrux container, which allowed the girl's body to shrug off damage that would otherwise be deadly, both Tom and the girl would've died long before help arrived. Now that he knew he lacked the strength to take on the Potter boy alone he pushed forward his plan to resurrect himself.

He waited until his host and the Lovegood girl were being escorted by Lockhart and tried to subdue the professor quickly, yet again he was surprised when the professor proved he was more capable than Tom had believed. However, it took more than just capability to fight Tom, knowing he needed to move quickly he put the professor out of the fight with a dark spell to the knee and took the stunned Luna Lovegood into the chamber.

His plan was to drain his host of all her magic and use that magic to rebuild his body in physical form, he would then sacrifice the virgin Lovegood to fuel a ritual that would give his body the range of magic he was used to. His plan was foiled by Potter not only showed up much quicker than he had expected, the boy also brought the host's brother.

Both boys showed a surprising amount of resilience, he had hoped the basilisk would kill the pair but they managed to keep the snake at bay. When the Potter boy started to create a sympathetic statue, Tom was forced to step in and make his body form quickly at the cost of magical potential.

He relied on his greater knowledge of spells to keep the Potter boy on the defensive which gave him the time he needed to draw the last of his old host's magic. But when Tom switched from holding him at bay to out-right killing him the Potter boy proved annoyingly hard to hit.

When the boy summoned that infernal spear Tom knew he needed to change his plan. When his spells just ricocheted off the silver spear he started planning his escape while simultaneously trying to stop the boy killing him… again, when the spear flew towards him he jumped out of the way only to be sent flying by a blasting curse.

Tom couldn't help grinning when both boys ignored him and focused back on the basilisk, it gave him enough time to begin the self destruct sequence embedded in the chambers ward scheme. He couldn't help taunting the boys before disillusioning himself and escaping down a pipe, he knew from prior trips the pipe led all the way to Hogsmeade.

It had been tough the first few days and he had resorted to stealing trinkets and selling them at shady pawn brokers, once he had a bit of money he converted them into galleons and booked a bed at a cheap magical inn.

Having established a place to sleep he was then forced to find a job in Diagon Alley, in his past he had worked in Borgin and Burkes and knew the job provided plenty of opportunities, such as finding rich purebloods who were at the very least sympathetic to the dark.

But Mr. Borgin would likely recognise him and start asking awkward questions, as such Tom had been forced to look in a less suspicious place. As he needed to find out what happened since he made the horcrux he applied for a small position at the Daily Prophet.

This gave him access to the store of previous papers, he skipped the last ten years and then went backwards from there. The court records were extremely unhelpful as they only told Tom that those that may support him were all in Azkaban.

The general consensus in the office was that some Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy bribed their way out of punishment, but Tom couldn't go to him for help as if they were wrong Lucius would hand him in. Even if Lucius had been a willing Death Eater, the man may decide to hand Tom in anyway just to prove he had changed.

As far as Tom was concerned he was completely alone and would need to start from the ground up. But this time Dumbledore knew of his alias of Voldemort and while the ministry didn't officially recognise him as having returned, that didn't stop Dumbledore taking matters into his own hands if Tom got a desk job at the ministry.

There was also another issue Tom had to worry about, the trace. It could be that the trace wore off for the original Tom and hadn't been reapplied to him, or the trace was applied to his physical body and would be removed when his body reached 17.

Or… the third option which Tom thought was most likely and also the worst. If the trace worked upon magical signature then Tom was practically doomed throughout the next several school years. As he never finished his ritual his magic had Ginevra Weasley's magical signature.

Which meant he needed to wait at least five years for her magic to mature, until then any major rituals could potentially do more damage than good. He hoped it was this weakness in his magic which had allowed the Potter boy to stand up to him.

The trace meant Tom was trapped within the wizarding world as he refused to step into the muggle world defenseless, even within Diagon while his magic would be masked he needed to spend his magic sparingly. Should a single instance of under aged magic reach the ministry during the school year they would send somebody to investigate.

Even if he gave them a fake name they would assume he was muggle born and bring him to Hogwarts, where Dumbledore would control him again. Luckily Tom knew ways to get around the trace, any magic that didn't require a wand such as runes or potions went under the ministry's radar.

So until he could move freely he would keep his head down and quietly work towards his plans.

* * *

Having finished the latest addition of the Quibbler Luna curiously looked up from her couch and tried to figure out what Bathsheda and Harry were working on. She didn't understand how Harry made his mithril but she was fine with that, Harry never kept his projects secret from her but she generally preferred to just watch him work.

Currently they had several mithril spheres each about half a foot in diameter, Harry would form the spheres while Bathsheda etched runes onto another. When Bathsheda finished the runes the sphere would be placed in a tray with slots which held and powered the spheres, each sphere would then have a tiny ward covering it.

Each tray held three rows of five, when all fifteen slots had been filled Harry would put the tray into a slot in the ward generator. Whenever a tray was added the slot would fuse shut and the wards would layer themselves over the generator, a rune on the outside then determined how big the ward would become.

As there were six slots either side of the generator this new and improved mithril ward could have 90 wards layered on top of each other. As Harry and Bathsheda were only testing the new generator design they filled and loaded one tray then tested the resulting ward.

The new design had several benefits, such as making it very easy to add or remove wards without rewriting the entire array. It also fixed the problem with the old design where the runes would cancel each other out, the downside was each ward was individually powered so the power consummation had skyrocketed.

Hopefully the mix of ley lines and the mithril generator would prove powerful enough to keep the wards at full strength, but in case they weren't Harry had decided to add the feedback ward he had implemented on his shield. It would simply draw the power out of any spell that struck the ward and feed it back into the wards.

If anyone tried to take out the wards by force then no matter how much magic they threw at the wards they would only ever make the ward harder to break. Bathsheda had warned this wouldn't make the ward impenetrable as there were a thousand ways to break a ward and very few of those methods employed a 'hit it till it dies' strategy.

As they wouldn't know if the mithril ward worked until they actually warded a property, Harry, Bathsheda and Dumbledore would be going home over the Christmas holiday to ward Dumbledore's home and then Bathsheda and Harry would try to break through the wards.

* * *

_This chapter was tough to write honestly. Next week there may not be a chapter as I'm going to finish Time Heist._

_I also recently got into a theatre group called 'Starkids' who do really great plays, I strongly suggest watching 'The guy who doesn't like musicals', it's a comedy-horror on youtube for free and it's one of my new favourite shows._

_For Tom Riddle he will be a different character to Voldemort,. While Voldemort is stronger than Dumbledore, Tom only has the power of Ginny Weasley and as he isn't under the protection of Hogwarts he can't exercise his magic like Harry does. With the trace Tom doesn't know if it is tracking him or not and as he can't test it he assumes the worst-case scenario._

_I will also note that Tom knows he made horcruxes as he himself is one but he doesn't know how many he managed to make, I'm going to say he made the diary with the murder of his father as I said Frank Price thought Tom was 16 when he saw him and diary Tom is also 16. _

_As such Tom knows about his heritage and the gaunt ring and probably knew he was planning to turn the ring into a horcrux but he wouldn't find the cup or locket until he left Hogwarts and the diadem he found much later. Also my thoughts are as a living horcrux he is practically immortal to anything that doesn't instantly kill him or can't be naturally healed, but once killed he is permanently dead. _


	54. Mithraite

Remus carefully made his way down to the lakeshore and after applying cushioning charms sat down next to Harry. Across the Black Lake Remus could just make out the shadowy forms of the dementors, judging by how Harry had been staring at them for the past hour he assumed the boy was studying them.

It was a look Lily had regularly worn but it was strange to see it on James' face. But while he often acted like Lily, physically Harry looked like James in their fifth year, while not as tall he had a similar build and mannerisms. Of course there were several differences between James and his son.

For a start the boy's left hand still hadn't recovered from the dementor encounter, as a specialist on the effect of dark creatures upon the body he had been asked to take a look at the hand. The consensus was that while the hand still worked perfectly, the magic within the hand was completely dead.

The skin itself was an off grey colour with pure white veins, this discolouration had spread up past his shoulder where his original skin tone started bleeding through. The reason the hand had still not recovered was because the damage had been inflicted by a dementor using a dark form of magic, which meant normal magic couldn't heal it.

They, that was to say Remus, Pomphrey, Dumbledore and Flamel, had also noticed Harry's body temperature had dropped by 5 degrees Celsius. But strangely he was showing no signs of damage so they tentatively hoped his magic had it under control.

The other biggest difference between father and son was the fact Harry was missing the distinctive Potter glasses, while James hadn't needed to wear his all the time he thought they made him look cooler. Later in their sixth year James realised he could enchant his glasses with… interesting abilities.

It was odd but Remus couldn't help trying to find features of his old friend in Harry. He was definitely more mature than James had been at his age and significantly stronger, both physically and magically.

In fact Harry was easily the most powerful student in his year, without fail he would be the first to pick up a new spell, sometimes even on his first try. According to the other teachers the only reason Harry hadn't been allowed to move up a year or two was because his written work was rarely on bar with his practical work.

"Studying the dementors?" Remus asked lightly, bringing Harry out of his thoughts.

"Oh, hi Professor Lupin. I guess I was just lost in thought… how did you find me anyway?"

"Well your father, myself and some friends used to use this spot a lot. We found it was a good place to relax… and avoid the teachers." Lupin winked at Harry to show he was only joking.

"Could… could you tell me stories of my dad?" Harry asked softly, Remus internally winced as he remembered how he had ran away when Harry had first asked on the train. Feeling he owed it to the boy he started to tell Harry about James, he chose stories that didn't involve Peter or Sirius as they were painful.

* * *

Harry inspected his new mithril watch cautiously, at first he had made it to hold the physical side of his shield. While he had thought it was a good idea to have his shield on him at all times inside his arm, the mithril couldn't expand outside his skin.

While his mithril sleeve had originally continuously summoned the metaphysical shield until it was needed, it was impractical and when he had entered the magical dead zone in the Caribbean the shield had disappeared and he had needed to make a new one.

This led to him making the watch, which would hold the shield until it received a signal from the mithril in his arm where it would expand outwards. By mixing runes with the mithril's intent the shield could go from its one inch diameter form to its full size in less than a second.

The power behind the shield remained within his arm, so that even if he lost the watch he could make magical shields. But having run out of ideas for his shield he started thinking about what else his watch could do, ironically while he called it his watch he had been unable to get the mithril to display the time.

Remembering how he had used his mithril to mimic Tonks' power at Malfoy Manor he had started modifying his watch to let him change his appearance at will. In order to change quickly he forced a small spike to extend from the mithrilium in his arm and painlessly pierce the skin, it then combined with the watch.

As the mithrilium controlled the mithril watch he could change what form the watch turned him into with barely a thought. But while the mithrilium made it much quicker, he still needed to fully understand what he wanted. Changing the colour of his hair or skin was relatively easy, but if he wanted something more complex like wings or extra limbs he would need to perfectly understand how they worked inside and out.

Unfortunately both his mithril and mithrilium was unable to 'store' such complex information, so every time he wanted to change he would have to mentally go through how his metamorphing worked. The only time he knew of mithril storing information was the sword of Gryffindor, the rubies on the sword held the powers of the sword.

While he knew what he wanted, he had no idea how to create it. As he had grown tired of calling it crystalised mithril he had picked a name for it 'Mithraite'. His first attempt was to get his mithrilium and get it to stay in liquid form outside his body, simply willing his mithril to remain mithrilium didn't work.

Bathsheda had then designed a runic array which kept the mithrilium in a form of stasis, they were then able to pour it into a bowl where Harry could better experiment. At Dumbledore's urging he had also started writing his observations in a notebook, the first page documented the appearance of his mithril.

The normal mithril was normally plain silver but the mithrilium had a green tint to it, he expected the mithraite to be a green see-through crystal. After he had inspected the mithrilium he had placed a block of mithril inside the bowl, he had hoped the two would combine but unfortunately the mithril had just converted into more mithrilium.

He and Bathsheda would continue to experiment but even though they knew what they wanted to achieve getting there was proving to be an issue. He also hadn't forgotten Dumbledore's challenge of replicating the sword of Gryffindor, to do that he would need to create his own mithraite.

Until then he could only experiment with what he had and hope he would figure out how to make it in a controlled environment, but knowing his luck he would accidentally discover his mithraite in a life or death situation.

* * *

_The name mithraite comes from reviewer 'Jedi Master Albus', I personally pronounce it like "Myth-ra-ite" _

_I don't like how short this chapter is but I had no inspiration to write… hopefully I can get more done for next week. In case it wasn't obvious this version of Harry doesn't need glasses, originally I had planned on explaining how Harry was using his magic to mimic the effect of glasses but felt it didn't fit so it's now here instead!_

_Something I've noticed with Remus Lupin is there appears to be three main versions of him; Fanfiction Remus, book Remus and then movie Remus. The fanfiction version is the one most often found in 'bashing' fics where Remus is extremely cowardly and does whatever Dumbledore says._

_Book version is still a coward but he thinks for himself, finally you have the movie Remus (aka the cooler Remus) due to the additional scenes Remus has with Harry we get to see more of his personality so he acts much more confident, think about the corridor scene in Prisoner of Azkaban where Snape tries to take the map away._

_While I have no issue with any of these Remus' for the sake of this fic I'll be trying to emulate the movie version as that is my personal favourite. Ultimately he will only be a minor character but I thought it was worth mentioning._


	55. Home for Christmas

As Luna was staying at Hogwarts over Christmas Harry was first meeting Tonks in Dumbledore's office, then the two would meet the man at Hogsmeade Station. Technically Harry should be at the leaving feast but instead he was breaking into Dumbledore's office… again.

He let the identifier ward tell Albus he was attempting to get into the office, but then started disabling the anti-lockpicking ward. His saber could rip straight through everything just like the chamber of secrets but if he wanted it easy he'd just ask the gargoyle to move.

Another self imposed restraint was that he couldn't leave the wards open for someone else to just walk in, because he didn't want to be delayed in leaving simply because Dumbledore needed to reapply the wards he broke. It was a game he and Albus had started playing ever since the headmaster had first "broken in" the first Halloween.

With Sirius Black breaking out of Azkaban and Voldemort almost breaking in the year before, the game had evolved from a fun pastime to an important element in their security.

Using his mage sight he was meticulously adding a conditional rule to the wards that would allow his signature to enter without triggering the ward. It took forever and if it wasn't a feast he probably would've been caught, as it was he eventually got to the gargoyle having been seen by the Grey Lady.

The statue grinned at him cheekily and Harry soon found out why, his previous break-in had involved lifting the gargoyle with magic and moving it to the side. Now the bottom of the statue had fused to the floor and would only release when given a signal from the office.

As it was now part of the castle it also gained the indestructible protection of Hogwarts, meaning simply blowing it up wasn't an option either. Seeing no alternative he formed four mithril balls and stuck them to the four corners of the archway, once they were all in place he reached out for them with his magic and activated them simultaneously.

Together they formed an amateur expansion charm that made the archway marginally bigger, this meant the gap between gargoyle and archway was big enough for Harry to slip through when he breathed in.

Now inside the staircase he needed a way up, the door wouldn't unlock until the rising staircase came to a stop. The runic equation to undo the locking charm had been split in half, one side just below the doorway and the other on the side of the top step. Once the spiral staircase finished rising the two would be perfectly in line and allow the door to be opened.

But because of the runes the top step couldn't lower into the ground which gave Harry room to look at it and etch it, he then put sticking charms on his hands and climbed up to the doorway. Trusting in his charms he used one hand to keep himself steady while the other lined up the drawing with the rune.

When he got the paper in the right place he stuck it to the stone and stepped into the office. Fawkes chirped happily from his ashes and Harry carefully scooped him up and popped him in his pocket, which was small enough for baby Fawkes to peek over the top.

There was a common misconception that phoenixes have a burning day every month and that they grew from a chick to adult practically overnight, while in actuality a phoenix can naturally go up to 30 years without having a single burning. But the raw magic that lived within the phoenix was extremely destructive and would kill its host over time, every time a phoenix used its magic the rate of decay would practically double.

When the decay grew too great the phoenix could release their magic in one great burst, which would completely heal it and rejuvenate it back into a chick. If a phoenix was killed too soon after a burning day then they would stay dead as they didn't have the power to heal, this was why pet phoenixes were often hidden until they recovered.

As Fawkes was a relatively active phoenix he often burned every five to ten years, but after the events in the Chamber of secrets Fawkes had been delivering messages across the world at a young age and so had burned out quicker than expected.

After the burning Albus had given the spare ashes to Snape who had used them in his modified Wolfsbane potion.

"While your idea of mixing the dementor ash with ground salamander claw has merit, such a combination would completely counter the effect of the ash without leaving anything behind. The resulting potion would kill any werewolf near instantaneously while leaving any non-werewolves unaffected, an interesting way to identify the creatures but not what we need.

"But when I followed your idea of countering the dementor ash I discovered phoenix ash would nullify the negative aspects of the dementor while enhancing the beneficial." Snape had explained

Harry had even been allowed to sit in as the professor carefully prepared the modified potion, due to the conflicting nature of the two ashes Snape needed to split the potion in half. One cauldron contained the first half of the potion with the dementor ash while the other contained the second half and phoenix ash.

He admitted without Harry's modified cauldrons which could keep a potion in stasis, the potion would've been impossible to brew without two expert potion master's working in sync. As it was he soon finished the two halves and then carefully mixed the two together, it was obvious the two didn't want to mix.

Getting Harry to continue stirring the potion Snape dashed to his store and returned with matricaria chamomilla leaves, he ripped the leaves to shreds and told Harry to stir six times clockwise then once counter clockwise. Everytime he went counter clockwise Snape would sprinkle some of the shreds into the potion, slowly the potion started mixing as the stirring became easier.

The potion finally settled into a smooth pastel blue colour but when he breathed in he felt a stinging in his throat, Snape quickly pulled him away and produced a shield specifically designed to stop potions and gases. "I can only assume the sharp smell is from the two ashes reacting with each other, neither should hurt you but it is best to be prepared."

Over the holidays Snape would inspect the potion and see if he could detect any problems with it, if it worked correctly they hoped it would make the transformation completely optional. If the werewolf didn't transform then they were less likely to accidentally infect somebody else.

Once Fawkes was old enough to no longer need the ash he and Nicolas were going to use it as a catalyst to try and transmute his mithril. To change the mithril would require a huge amount of power so they hoped the raw energy of the ash combined with the infinite potential of the Stone would give them enough to permanently change the mithril.

Back in the office Harry took the time to write a small note, poking fun at the headmaster's defences when the fire flared green. He checked the incoming signature and recognised it as Tonks', so after activating his gauntlet he cautiously opened the floo.

While he was ready to fight anyone getting through he breathed a sigh of relief when just Tonks stumbled out of the fireplace. Once she was through and there were no other travellers he sealed it behind her.

"Hi Tonks, fancy meeting you here." He said cheekily, in truth he was surprised to see her as she was ten minutes early. After hearing his voice, Tonks quickly stood up and brushed the soot off her clothes.

"Oh hey Harry, what are you doing here?"

"Didn't feel like going to the feast" Harry shrugged, having decided to let Tonks think Dumbledore let him in the office "What are _you_ doing here, I thought you wouldn't be here for another few minutes?"

"Moody got called in to deal with a rogue earth golem, as that's far beyond my current training he let me go early." He wondered who had been stupid enough to let a golem loose, it too a lot of power to create one but even then they were slow.

But it was incredibly hard to destroy a golem if you weren't the creator, the magic of them meant that for as long as they were charged they could rebuild themselves from anything around them. The only tried and tested way to destroy a rogue golem was to keep shooting it till it ran out of power and died.

"Right, well then are we just waiting for the Headmaster then?" Tonks asked cheerfully, clearly eager to start her holiday. Officially she was working as Harry's bodyguard but she doubted anyone, not even Sirius Black, would be mad enough to attack Harry at Dumbledore's house.

"Nah, he wanted to make sure everyone leaving got on the train safely so we've got plenty of time to kill. Let's go down to the lake, there's something I want to try but I haven't had time to test it."

On the way down to the lake Harry stopped to get the model boat Dumbledore had given him for his birthday, which also gave him the opportunity to show off his workshop to yet another person. He enjoyed surprising people with his powers and inventions, it was like they were validating the effort he put into his projects.

Once at the lake he carefully lowered the boat into the water and then activated the mithril, after he had finished building the boat he had started improving it with a mix of runes and mithril. For a start he had made the hull completely waterproof and a rune on the sails controlled how fast the boat would go.

Finally he used his mithril to remotely control the boat. His training with Snape had taught him to split his consciousness between his physical body and mithril, so while he talked to Tonks he could also test how the boat acted on the open water.

"That's the boat Dumbledore got you right? It looks good." Tonks said kindly

"Thanks, but could you cast a reducto at it please?"

"You sure" She asked hesitantly

"Yeah, it should be able to absorb the spell… but if it doesn't I can make a new one easily enough."

With that Tonks took aim and fired the blasting curse, it skimmed across the water and even without his magesight Harry could see it was losing power. But Tonks' aim was true and it splashed against the boat's hull, but rather than destroy the tiny boat a green shield briefly appeared.

Glad that his runes had worked, Harry drew more of his consciousness out of the boat and let it drift in the waves. With one of his questions answered he now wanted to check another project.

"Tonks, would you mind just randomly changing your body for a bit?" She gave him a weird look at that, but having grown used to his somewhat odd requests she did as asked.

Every time she changed her core would send out a faint pulse of magic throughout her body, when he had first met her Harry had noticed the structure of her magical signature changing. Now he could see what made the change possible.

The magical signature which made up her body acted independently of her magic, the reason he couldn't change his own body at will was because his magical core couldn't change its own structure. But Tonks' core and signature were two separate entities, the magic existed just under the surface of her signature.

But just because he couldn't change his own signature didn't mean his mithril couldn't. His 'mutatio' watch, literally changing watch, currently just applied a disguise over him, so anyone looking at his signature would easily see through it.

It would be almost impossible for somebody else dispelling his disguise, but once somebody had seen through it the jig was up regardless. Snape had given him an idea on how to improve his mithril when they had started exploring the limitations of his mithril when combined with external magic.

"It is imperative you don't imbue your blood into this mithril, as we don't currently know what your mithril is capable of. Your blood may lead to your mithril trying to copy you and assume your identity." Personally Harry thought Snape was overreacting but he had kept his promise, but he had never promised to not imbue somebody else's magic.

They assumed combining blood with the mithril would produce a sympathetic bond between blood donor and mithril, so if his blood combined with his magic there would be nothing to distinguish himself from the metal. But if Tonks imbued her blood within the mithril, he hoped his mithril would copy the metamorph ability without establishing a bond.

But without the mithraite his dreams would never become reality.

* * *

Tonks was more than happy to talk to Harry about her ability, having spent most of the summer with him she felt a connection to him. Just like Harry the students of Hogwarts would regularly turn on her, of course unlike Harry she wasn't a super genius so had nothing to distract her from being hated.

She had started treating the boy like a younger brother, a younger brother that seemed to effortless cast magic beyond even her level without breaking a sweat and treated the Headmaster like an equal. Being around Harry was extremely refreshing as he just accepted her for who she was, rather than who she could be.

Whenever he talked about his projects she would get lost within moments, but as he seemed to enjoy explaining stuff to her she saw no reason to stop him. When he had satisfied whatever he wanted to know about her ability they started down to Hogsmeade, he fiddled with his watch and soon had sandy blonde hair and slightly taller.

Tonks was shocked to admit he was now just smaller than her current form, only then did she realise that Harry wasn't a metamorphmagus.

"How did you do that?"

"Well, it's my attempt at copying your power. It's not very good at the moment since it gives off a lot of magic to those that can see magic, but for a casual glance it works well enough. It still has a lot of work to go."

Shaking her head she followed slightly behind him, as they moved she would casually look around while keeping an eye out for any dangers. Luckily she saw nothing of note, except for a large black dog in the shade of the trees. Due to the size of the dog she regarded it carefully but it didn't seem to care about them.

Once in Hogsmeade village Harry did some cursory window shopping but didn't buy anything, as she had brought her presents a while ago she didn't need to enter either. Soon they ended up at the train station, having never arrived at the platform early before, Tonks was surprised that the Express hadn't arrived yet.

Harry happily sat on the edge of the platform and swung his legs back and forth, as he gazed intently at the rails. Tonks decided to join him and after spreading her awareness as Moody had taught her, laid back and gazed at the clouds.

* * *

Sirius had been keeping track of the newspapers but there had been no further mention of Voldemort, in fact him breaking out seemed to be the most important headline for months. As there was no obvious danger to Harry he decided to take his time and plan, to protect Harry he would first need to clear his name.

The problem was providing proof, so far his easiest plan was to convince Moony of his innocence and then together they would track down the rat. That was until he learned Moony was in Hogwarts, he couldn't just waltz into the school after all.

Which was why he was waiting outside the gates, hoping he could somehow talk to Moony. Another part of him was also hoping he would get to see Harry for the first time in a decade. He had checked the Dursleys, but there was no sign of him living with them and with Frank and Alice in St Mungos he didn't know who Harry would've gone to.

He had been suspicious of the girl and boy who had come through the gates early, but neither looked like James or Lily so he didn't bother giving them a second glance. Soon the students started flooding out of the gates but none of them looked like how he imagined Harry either, although he did see Moony which got him wagging his tail.

Then he noticed a red headed boy walking next to who must've been Frank's son, there was nothing extraordinary about them but as they were some of the last students to leave he found himself watching them. The red head was showing the other boy a frail looking rat. A part of Sirius thought he recognised the pet, but put it out of mind for the time being, he was too excited at the thought of talking to his long lost friend to worry about students and their pets.

* * *

_This chapter was kind of rushed, I wanted to write about the changing of the wards but I didn't think I would have time to write it, polish it and upload it so cut it out for next chapter. But I am going to be quite busy this week so I'm not sure how much writing I'm going to get done, so my question is what do you guys prefer: Weekly chapters of various lengths or long chapters roughly once a week (As in between 7 - 10 days)?_


	56. The Mithril Ward

After Albus saw the Express off he turned to Harry and Tonks, after making sure they were ready he apperated them to his Godric's Hollow. They would need to wait for Bathsheda and Moody before he took down his wards to replace them with the mithril wards, so today they would just be unpacking and resting.

Once they had unpacked, Tonks decided to take Harry clothes shopping while Albus finished some reports. Normally, whenever he wasn't in uniform, Harry wore simple cargo pants and t-shirts with a casual robe overtop, Bathsheda had then enchanted both pockets with undetectable extension charms.

Nothing in the store caught his attention, aside from a blue-grey trench coat hidden at the back. The moment Harry saw it he knew he wanted it, despite the fact even the smallest size was still too big for him he tried it on.

"Looks good on you kiddo" Tonks said honestly, like Harry she knew that the coat could be enchanted to fit better. She could perform that particular charm with barely a thought, a necessity for any shapeshifter.

* * *

The next day when Bathsheda eventually arrived, the two then set about setting up the ward. Having already made the ward spheres the night before, they only needed to carve the final runes into the mithril.

Once done, they signalled Dumbledore who then made sure Moody and Tonks were ready to defend them if necessary, he then carefully lowered every ward on his house for the first time in decades. Harry then started manipulating the mithril base to project the wards so that it completely covered the property.

With the wards in place Moody and Dumbledore set about trying to break them down, a normal ward would've fallen under being attacked so soon after its generation. A ward normally gained power over time, so a ward scheme that was centuries old like Hogwarts was significantly stronger now compared to when they had been put up.

The Mithril ward would remain static, currently the wards felt as strong as Hogwarts, but in 100 years time there could be a noticeable difference. But despite this Dumbledore still believed the mithril ward was better.

"Take for example the world cup wards, they've been passively drawing power for nearly eight years and there's still some concern about their integrity. Your wards could be set up the day of the event and nearly impenetrable, there's also the matter of secrecy.

"Due to the nature of the world cup the wards couldn't be kept quiet, so anyone planning to attack the stadium has had eight years to plan a way around them. By having the wards up only when they are needed you prevent somebody planning an attack in advance." Dumbledore had said.

Unfortunately the adults had unanimously agreed it was too dangerous for Harry to stick around, so he and Tonks were going to stay in her flat until they knew what the mithril ward was capable of.

* * *

"Okay, just change your skin _one more time_." Tonks sighed but did as Harry asked, changing her skin from light purple to dark green. They were sitting on top of her bed and he had decided to make sense of her powers again, every time she changed her body Harry would run his hands across his watch.

Eventually he nodded confidently and started changing in front of her, unlike her own metamorphing hsi was slow. First he made his hair longer and silkier, then his eyes changed from intense green to soft blue, bit by bit he changed his body until he looked completely different.

If Tonks didn't know it was him she would've assumed he was close to her own age, not the thirteen year old he was meant to be. Despite herself, she started poking him just to check it wasn't an illusion.

"How did you do that?" Harry had shown some skill over self modification, such as changing the colour of his hand when they had first met. But there was a huge difference between recolouring a hand and completely changing your body.

"A fair bit of cheating and… dare I say, talent?" Harry replied cheekily "I have to focus on each transformation carefully, but it should now hold until I tell it otherwise. This is basically self-transfiguration, but eventually I want to get it to full, on-the-spot metamorphosing."

"The only problem is your magic still feels the same… and your voice is the same." While she couldn't see magic like Moody or Harry, all witches and wizards could sense magic on an instinctual level. Likewise all witches and wizards gave off a passive magical aura, for the average magical they only gave off enough magic to tell they had magic. But for those powerful enough like Dumbledore, the magic given off was strong enough to be distinct.

What Tonks was detecting was Harry's magical signature. The average witch or wizard wouldn't have been able to identify him, they would've just known there was a powerful wizard in the room. But as she had spent so much time around Harry and his magic, her own magic recognised him on an instinctual level.

"Damn, okay how about… now?" Harry closed his eyes and gained an expression of deep concentration. At first Tonks didn't know what he was doing but then she felt his magic start to disappear. It felt like he was simply walking away except for the fact he was right in front of her, soon she could barely sense his magic at all.

It was extremely unnerving to look at somebody she knew _was_ Harry, but without his looks and magic there was nothing she could recognise of her friend.

"How… how did you do that?"

"Well I've been trying to control my aura since I was eleven, hidden it isn't that difficult anymore. I want to be able to actually change the feel of my magic but so far I haven't been able to do it."

Tonks was going to question him further but was interrupted by a dark shape flying through her window, before she even knew what it was she had drawn her wand and looked for where the thing had gone. She soon discovered it was a black crow that had perched itself on Harry's arm.

"Why hello, I was wondering when you would be coming back." Harry said softly, running his hand down the birds back. At his touch the crow shivered and revealed that the light reflected off it, leading Tonks to assume it was a rare magical bird.

The crow then tucked its beak under its wing and started rummaging around, only to come out with a letter which was definitely too big to hide. Seeing that Harry was going to take the letter without even checking for curses Tonks tried to warn him.

"It's fine Tonks, Corvus wouldn't have accepted the letter if it was dangerous. Anyway I doubt Dumbledore would have sent a cursed letter… He says they're gonna test the wards overnight and that we should be able to return tomorrow."

Harry then ran his finger over the birds back in a pattern, the back then popped off to reveal the bird was hollow. Feeling faintly sick, Tonks found herself leaning over and studying the insides, but she couldn't make heads nor tails of it. But Harry obviously could as he then pulled out a thin, pale silver square and held it out to her.

"As you're here, would you mind focusing your magic in your finger and touching this plate? It will allow Corvus to find you no matter where you are and likewise allow you to send letters to me… or anyone else in the database I guess."

Wearily she did as he asked and let the plate absorb the offered magic, when the plate turned the colour of soft violet she felt it looked familiar. Harry then slid the plate back into place where it joined seven other plates, but only four of those plates were coloured.

Then after fixing the birds back, Harry held his arm towards the closed window and allowed the crow to take off. Tonks winced as the bird reached the glass, expecting it to have shattered, instead the bird seemed to blur before it reappeared on the other side of the glass.

"Right… well if we aren't expected back till tomorrow, how about a bit of fun?" She asked hesitantly, she didn't know what Harry did for fun and hoped he would like the same stuff as herself.

"Sure, what did you want to do?"

"Keep your disguise on for a start." She said, then held out her arm and wiggled her fingers playfully, inviting him to grab hold. Once he had a firm grip she apperated them near her favourite muggle night club, under his disguise he looked old enough to get in… with mild use of a confundus.

* * *

_Really struggling with ideas currently, I've started skipping ahead and writing Goblet of Fire, so once I get year 3 over with it should be easy sailing. But I'm also going to start tidying up the entire story, because I had to go through the story finding all references to the colour of signatures. Suffice to say I am quite embarrassed at the lack of quality, there's the continuity issues. For instance Harry gifts a mithril bird to Nicolas that can send mail to 20 people, only to then make Corvus (Latin for crow) in the Caribbean and can only send to 8 people._

_So in short I don't know when I will next upload a new chapter for this story, but the story will be continuously improved (hopefully)._

_Colours:_

Harry: Vibrant Green

Bathsheda: Light Purple

Luna: Sky Blue

Dumbledore: Dark Indigo

Tonks: Soft Violet

Voldemort: Dark red

Hermione: Vivid Cyan


	57. Meeting the Marauders

Dancing was such a simple thing, at first Harry had no idea what to do but Tonks had patiently taught him. Then something just clicked and he found himself lost in the rhythm, his mithrilium even gave him hints on how to improve his dancing.

After a few days practice, he was able to keep up with Tonks, even if it was obvious she had more experience. Harry found he could relax, he only had to think of the music and could let his worries wash away, it was extremely therapeutic.

Soon Christmas day arrived and they gathered round the tree. It was the third time Harry had celebrated Christmas and his first surrounded entirely by friends, it made the day feel important and Harry felt he finally understood why the other children cherished the day.

At the head of the table was Dumbledore, Harry was sitting to his right and then Tonks was to the right of him. Beside her was Bathsheda then Moody at the end of the table, who could then keep an eye on the only door into the dinning room. Finally Nicolas and his wife, Perenelle Flamel, sat on the opposite side of the table.

When Harry had first met Nicolas it had been hard to judge his age, he could've been anywhere from 70 to 100. But as his store of the elixir of life had started to deplete he and his wife had started aging again, what elixir remained ensured they would age slowly.

But the pair had refused point blank when Harry had offered them back the Stone. "I plan to live long enough to see you flourish… Then me and Perenelle shall take on the great next adventure."

It was the first time Harry had most of his friends gathered around him. It was nice to see Tonks and Nicolas discuss the abilities of a metamorphmagus, or Bathsheda asking Moody about the runes on his eye. The lunch had been prepared by a Hogwarts house elf, so nobody had to wash up.

Once lunch was finished they gathered around the tree and started handing out presents, Harry enjoyed seeing everyone's faces as they opened his presents. His only issue was that Luna wasn't around, but with Xenophilius out of the country she had to stay at Hogwarts.

Nicolas had helped him with most of his presents that year, like his gift to Tonks which was a mithril bracelet with an alchemical stone embedded. An alchemical stone was simply an object which had been enchanted to help an alchemical process, the Philosopher's Stone being the most powerful alchemical stone to date.

Tonks' alchemical stone would convert the magical energy of the mithril into solid matter, which she could then use to drastically increase her powers. She had then given Harry dragon skin gloves, which she hoped would stop him damaging his hand.

Moody had given Harry a book on Auror grade spells, such as advanced protection spells and basic situation awareness. In turn, Harry had given him one of his flasks. But he had modified it so that it would produce whatever had last been poured into it, it was also impossible for anyone other than Moody to open the cap and would nullify any poisons.

By the time all the presents were opened everyone seemed content and truly happy, it was a moment Harry wouldn't forget in a hurry.

* * *

"He's the perfect mix between his mother and father Sirius, his curiosity definitely comes from Lily but his creativity is pure James. For instance the other day we were talking about how to deal with a grindylow, and he suggested blasting them with a fire spell. His reasoning was that as grindylows prefer cold water, the heat from the spell would keep them away!" Remus said excitedly, he and Sirius were hidden in the Shrieking Shack, drinking fire whiskey and reminiscing about old times.

Together they had decided to approach Dumbledore at the end of the year and explain Sirius' story, they hoped the fact he hadn't done anything the whole year despite his proximity to the castle would help.

Remus doubted the Sirius he used to know would never have been able to wait so long, it seemed twelve years in Azkaban had changed more than just his looks. But even with his new-found patience, with barely two weeks left till the end of the year Sirius was starting to become antsy cooped up in the shack.

To try and keep him occupied Remus had gotten Sirius to mark some of his class work, then he helped prepare classes. He got a kick anytime Harry's name came up, which Remus hoped kept him focused on why he needed to wait in the shack.

* * *

With the full moon set to rise that night Remus was nervous, Snape's potions helped immensely but that didn't stop his fear that he might lose control. He was also worried for his friend Hagrid, who's hippogriff was set to be executed on the same night. Never mind his fear of a high ranking member of the disposal of dangerous creatures being near him when he transformed.

But there was an issue, after he had caught the Weasley twins studying an apparently blank piece of parchment he had recovered the marauders map. It made catching students much easier, but one night he saw a name that shouldn't have been anywhere near Hogwarts 'Peter Pettigrew'.

He had kept the knowledge from Sirius, the man had nearly ruined his life chasing after Pettigrew, Remus wouldn't let him do it again. When they had made the map they had used their blood to hide their names from anyone who wasn't a marauder, so he couldn't show the Headmaster.

Which was why he was carefully scanning the map before Snape arrived, the rat had been staying in Hagrid's hut for the last few days and he wanted to trap him before sunset. "Evening Professor Lupin, Professor Snape had to deal with some Slytherins so he sent me instead."

Harry put the potion on the desk and casually leaned over to look at the map, Remus wondered why he was so interested in something that should appear blank. "Nice map, did you make it?"

With a start, Remus remembered that James' blood would recognise Harry as a marauder. "Yes… We, that is the marauders, finished this map at the end of our sixth year. Regrettably we never got much use out of it as we spent most of seventh year studying… or at least me and Peter did, James and Sirius spent most of the year relaxing and still got top marks."

Remus wanted to fold up the map and stop Harry seeing Peter's name right in the centre, but he couldn't think of a way to do it without drawing undue attention. As such he was helpless as Harry's finger drifted across the page, he could only hope that the boy was too busy studying the map to bother reading the names.

"This is great, I assume it links into the wards? So it should be able to easily detect people through privacy enchantments… I wonder if it can see through invisibility cloaks too. Although if it works based on magic then it wouldn't detect muggles, which means anyone that can hide their aura would also drop off the map…"

Harry's finger then came to a stop, but he wasn't looking at Hagrid's hut. It seemed Sirius had gotten bored of waiting within the shack and had stepped outside the willow.

"Black's broken in, we need to tell Dumbledore!" Harry said hurriedly, running to the door. Moving quickly Remus flicked his wand towards the door and sealed it, he had no idea how he was going to explain it but he couldn't let Harry get to Dumbledore.

But before he could even begin to explain himself, Harry had whirled around with his wand raised in his right hand. His left hand seemed to be in a bright silver gauntlet, it was covered in bright red veins which were glowing ominously.


	58. Night of the full moon

Remus raised his hands calmly, he wasn't scared of losing to a thirteen year old student, even if that student was the best in his year. But if Harry attacked he would need to defend himself, which would make everything much harder.

"Listen to me Harry, Sirius Black is innocent. He never betrayed your parents and he didn't kill those muggles."

"If he didn't betray my parents, who did?" Harry asked bitterly, normally the boy kept his emotions tightly reined in. Even on their semi-regular walks through the lighter parts of the forest he had kept control, having been fascinated when learning of his parents' lives in Hogwarts.

"It was Peter Pettigrew, from what I can understand he framed Sirius… To be completely honest I don't know the full story, but I trust in Sirius."

"If you trust him so much, why not go to Dumbledore?" Harry asked suspiciously, he still hadn't lowered his wand although his gauntlet had stopped glowing.

"And what evidence could we provide, it would be Sirius' word against the eyewitnesses. We were going to approach the Headmaster after the students had gone home, where we could talk without being in danger."

Harry slowly lowered his wand and Remus relaxed, but there was still a hard glint in the boy's eyes.

"I want to talk to him then." Harry said stubbornly

"Dumbledore can't know Harry, I'm sorry"

"Not Dumbledore, I want to talk to Black."

* * *

Sirius sat just beyond the reach of the Willow. He had grown tired of waiting for Remus to show up, so he had decided to stretch his legs as Padfoot. There was no risk of discovery because the only man alive who knew of his animagus form was Remus.

After a while he saw Remus walking down from the castle, he eagerly ran up to his friend only to stop short when he caught the scent of another human. Instinctively he stopped and started sniffing around until he bumped into an invisible leg.

He jumped back and was ready to strike when Remus deliberately moved between them, Sirius instantly settled down but couldn't help wondering why Remus had brought someone with him.

"Sirius, this is Harry… Harry, Sirius. We'll talk more when we're somewhere more private" He then marched purposely past Sirius and towards the Willow, Sirius trotted after him and hoped this 'Harry' was _his_ Harry.

Distantly he heard voices arguing and his ears flicked so he could hear better. "There's nothing we can do Ron, even my Gran couldn't get the committee to change their mind… Look can we get a move on, I don't want to see it."

"I would but Scabbers isn't making it easy, Merlin knows why he ran away in the first place. Will you be _still_, Scabbers!"

Just then the wind changed and he was able to catch three scents, two he didn't know but one he knew extremely well. His entire body tensed and he turned towards the two boys, there madly struggling in the one of the boys hands was a _very_ familiar rat.

Without a second thought he charged towards the boys, he deliberately over shot and sailed over the boys so that the rat had nowhere to run. The blonde boy had dived out of the way leaving the ginger one holding the rat free, Sirius dived for the rat only for it to run away.

* * *

Harry was stunned as the dog set off after Ron's rat, he didn't know why the two were out there to begin with as it was coming up to curfew. Lupin had set off after the dog, which left the three of them alone on the path. Neville had thrown a stunning spell at the dog and Harry was proud to see it struck him between the shoulders, the spell did nothing to the dog but the accuracy was impressive.

Neville had continued coming to his study group even after they had covered the few lessons he'd missed, he seemed to enjoy the way Harry taught. Draco and the older student had only attended a few sessions before they stopped showing up, which had left Justin, Colin and Neville, as the four were all friendly people Harry had started enjoying teaching them.

But for now the two were in his way, he hurriedly unfastened his Cloak and dropped the hood to drop the invisibility so that they could see him. "Guys, it's fine. Just go back to the castle before you get in trouble for being out after curfew."

"Sod that, I'm not going back without Scabbers!" Ron said firmly, the two then looked at Neville who stepped back fretfully. "C'mon mate, you aren't gonna leave without me are you? We'll be fine, we won't get in trouble cause we're with professor Lupin, and Harry won't let us get hurt!"

Harry rolled his eyes while summoning his spear, since the chamber he had keyed it into his arm's mithrilium.

With Snape's and Bathsheda's help he had figured out how to group ideologies together, so when he triggered the metaphysical line connecting the spear with his arm plate it would in turn trigger a specific ideology cluster.

When called, the spear would go metaphysical and shoot itself towards Harry, but it would also make itself go twice the speed of sound until it got within a few feet of him where it would slow to a stop. This meant it appeared in his hand nearly instantly, he then tossed it to Ron who had already proved to be capable of wielding it.

He then triggered his shield and together the three of them ran off after the distant form of Lupin, with the sun just starting to set behind them. The three were able to keep up a fast pace but Lupin was much faster, so once they got deep enough into the forest they got well and truly lost.

Or at least they would've been lost if Harry wasn't able to see the glowing beacon of Hogwarts through the tree, but he wasn't looking for Hogwarts. He kneeled in the ground and looked intently at the ground, he could see Lupin's track marks but they disappeared in the grass.

He then managed to find what he was looking for, rose red paw prints. It was the same signature as the signature he had found in Black's cell in Azkaban nearly a year ago, now that he knew what to look for it was easy to make them out against the other signatures.

With that they set off again, the other two had to trust that Harry knew where he was leading them as the footprints were invisible to them. But for Harry the footprints glowed brightly, easily guiding him to wherever the dog had gone. None of them noticed the slight chill in the air, which had been building the further they got into the forest.

Eventually they were led to a clearing, which contained Lupin and a familiar looking man who was looking around angrily. Harry quickly saw how the paw prints turned into footprints which led to the man. He stepped forward cautiously, he trusted Lupin and so if the professor said Black was innocent he would be willing to listen.

"Mr Black, it's nice to meet you in person." He said wryly, stepping forward into the clearing. His gauntlet remained inactive and he had moved his shield to his left arm to leave his wand free, even if he knew for a fact Black wouldn't attack him he wouldn't leave himself defenseless this deep into the forest.

"James?" Black asked slowly, Harry decided he looked better than his wanted posters but he was still dirty and dressed in a robe that had been poorly resized.

"No Sirius, this is his son, Harry." Remus said patiently

"Oh, yes I remember you introducing him! Harry!" Black set off towards Harry only to stop when the point of a very sharp spear appeared from beside his godson and pointed at his chest. "Professor call the aurors! This is Sirius Black!" Ron said fearfully, his spear shaking slightly.

"Ron give him a minute to explain himself first, I have it on good authority he was framed" Harry was glad Ron was defending him, but didn't want the boy to kill one of his last connections to his parents.

At his words Ron dutifully lowered the spear, although it was clear he could raise it should he need to. Black looked between Harry and Ron and grinned sadly.

"Now that you aren't about to be killed Black, Talk." Harry commanded forcefully.

"There isn't time, you don't understand the Rat's getting away!"

"What did you do to Scabbers!" Ron said suddenly, having remembered he had a reason for following Harry.

"Scabbers? No boy, his name's Peter Pettigrew, he's an animagus! If we move quickly -" Black said desperately only to be interrupted by Neville of all people

"Peter Pettigrew's dead, you… you _killed _him thirteen years ago! He was my parents secret keeper, because of you the death eaters were able to learn of the secret!" There was a deep anger in Neville's voice and when Harry looked at him there was a steadiness that had been previously missing.

"No! I didn't kill him, though I wanted to! I thought he had gotten himself blown up, but it was definitely him who ran away."

"So who betrayed _my_ parents then Black?" Harry demanded

"Peter did! Look, I was meant to be the secret keeper but at the last minute I convinced your parents to switch to Peter, he had kept the Longbottom's secret so we thought we could trust him! But then when I felt the Fidelius fall I knew something was wrong, I tracked him down but when I got to him he blamed _me_!"

"And Pettigrew somehow escaped and lived as a rat for thirteen years?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Yes! And he's getting away!"

Now that Harry knew what was going on he understood why Black was so impatient, he scanned the floor and tried to find Pettigrew's signature but as he had no idea what colour to look for it was impossible to find.

Just then the moon appeared over the horizon and illuminated the clearing, for a second Harry hoped the moonlight would make it easier to find the footprint but then he remembered the undrunk potion on the professor's desk.

* * *

_This chapter, the one before and the next chapter are basically three parts of the same chapter. I'm on Holiday next week so won't be releasing a chapter._

_As Harry didn't spend as much time with Hagrid in this story he didn't know about Buckbeak, as such he wasn't at Hagrid's which actually changes the story alot. _

_Now I received a review that basically said to focus on character and plot over inventions, which I can understand. Just keep in mind I do know what I'm doing, almost every mithril invention will eventually be important to the plot. _


End file.
